Wars of Our Fathers
by labRT2004
Summary: Two war-weary individuals find the courage to face their past and find their future. Written for Debjunk during the Autumn 2011 SS/HG Exchange.
1. Prologue

_**Wars of our Fathers**_

_A fan fiction by labrt2004_

_Prologue_

_Written for debjunk in the Autumn 2011 SS/HG Exchange_

**Disclaimer:** None of it is mine.

_**Author's Notes: **__Thank you to my betas, la_syren and snarkyroxy, for your tremendous help. And thank you,__debjunk__, for the great prompt. And thank you mods, for another wonderful exchange! This story is shamelessly AU. I've basically just taken whatever bits of canon are convenient and tossed out whatever bits aren't. :) Hope you enjoy it._

_Dejunk's prompt: Severus Snape's heart has been sealed against women ever since the fiasco with Lily. He finds himself paired with Hermione Granger in some sort of working atmosphere and is not pleased. Things warm up to amiable at some point and during a discussion Severus comments icily that women are heartless users and are not to be trusted. Our resident know-it-all sets out to prove him wrong, and eventually succeeds._

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"Bloody hell, Hermione, give the books a rest, will you? You've been at them for hours already! Harry and Ginny are coming over soon," Ron said, plopping himself down on the couch next to her.

"In a minute," Hermione muttered. "First day in court tomorrow. The Lower Wizengamot." She flipped frantically through the evidence file. "It _has _to be in here somewhere!"

Ron crunched on an apple. "What do you reckon we should buy for James' birthday? Ginny said if she sees one more stuffed wizard, she'll cast an Unforgivable at it."

"Hmm," replied Hermione noncommittally. She continued to dig through her briefcase. "I remember coming across it when I went over the case with Smithson... ah, here it is." She pulled out a coffee-stained piece of parchment from the thick stack and waved a cleansing charm over it.

"Think he's too young for Exploding Snap?"

She shrugged, inspecting the parchment. "He's turning six, Ron. I expect you can buy just about anything for him and he'll be thrilled to pieces...It says here that Leland was already crossing into Muggle London up to three times a week as far back as 1997... Merlin, how did he manage that when Thicknesse was around?" Her fingers combed through her hair as she considered this new question. "Probably shouldn't be talking about this out of chambers. Just pretend you didn't hear anything, please?"

A soft clearing of a throat sounded beside her. Startled, she looked back up at her husband. He sat stiffly, his hands folded in his lap. Shaking her head slightly to clear her still ticking thoughts of Leland's London escapades, she inquired, "Ron?"

"Congratulations," he said in a strained voice.

"Thanks?" said Hermione sarcastically, irritation mounting.

His hand found hers, and he grabbed it tightly. Hermione resisted the urge to pull it back. "I'm happy for you. It's just... You live in your own barrister world, speak a language I don't understand... Ever since... the War ended, you've just never relaxed. You're moving too quickly, is all I'm saying."

"Ronald," she said coldly, "this is the way I've always been. I like working."

"Right, I know! I love that about you! But once in a while, we need to go out for a quick bite to eat, or poke around Diagon Alley a bit, or visit my parents..." After a pause, he added, "and visit _yours_."

She snatched her hand out of his and turned away from him, feeling the old, helpless rage overtaking her again. Putting a shaking hand up to her face, she shouted, "We are NOT discussing my parents!" Parchment fluttered down from her lap, knocked off by the violence of her motions. "What is this really about?" she said, voice muffled by her fingers. "You know how hard it is to advance in the legal profession. I _have_to work hard."

"Fine! But after you finished university, you were already prancing around with your fancy knowledge, speaking to me like I was a bloody first year! Now that you've started your courtroom training, I probably don't even qualify as fit company, do I?"

"_Ron!_" she choked, feeling betrayal lance through her. She whipped herself around to face him again, eyes filling with unshed tears. "How could you say that?"

Dismay immediately overtook his features. Pulling at his hair, he whispered, "Oh, Merlin hex me to hell, I'm sorry, Hermione, I really am. I need to be horsewhipped."

She shook her head, too shocked for anger. Conflicted, nastily twisted emotions roiled through her. Shame at what she'd become. Horror at what he'd become. But mostly unfettered, wild panic.

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At seven o'clock sharp, Hermione Apparated to the front of the courthouse and sprinted madly up the steps, even though she still had a whole hour before court would be called into session by the bailwitch. Her case was the first on the docket today, so the room was mostly empty when she entered, the clicking of her high heels muted by the worn carpet. The only other people present were a young mother and her daughter in the public gallery. The little girl was wearing a pink dress, and her skin color alternated between green and blue as she sucked on a Chameleon Pop. They looked blankly at Hermione as she walked past them to the prosecutor's table. Feeling rather official, she pulled out one of the black, leather chairs and settled in, primly straightening her skirt. She carefully sorted through her briefs, mentally revising the details of the case. The courtroom smelled musty, like old paper and faded cleaning spells. She tried not to think about her fight with Ron last night. Licking her dry lips, she attempted to calm the nausea that was tying her stomach in knots. The door opened again, and her pupilmaster, Smithson, joined her at the table.

"Good morning, Mr. Smithson."

"Granger," he acknowledged. "Are you ready? But of course you are." Pulling out a pair of wire-framed glasses from his pocket, he peered over her shoulder at the notes she had made. He grunted at the sight of her small, tortured script. "Overkill, as usual, but you'll do just fine."

Hermione tried to laugh collegially, but it came out sounding like a strangled squeak. She fidgeted with the gold stitching on her barrister robes, running a finger beneath the scratchy collar. "It's much too hot in here," she complained.

Smithson chuckled. Unlike her, he leaned back into his chair with a practiced ease, and for a minute, he seemed to be considering putting his feet up on the table. "It's just nerves. I was like that for my first case, too. Put on my best suit beneath my robes. The whole trial lasted barely an hour, but I was sodden by the time I was finished."

Hermione glanced at the 900-page binder. "I think this one may go on for a good deal longer than that!" Albert Leland had masterminded an elaborate, widespread scam that involving money laundering and Muggle-baiting. He'd managed to make millions of galleons before the Aurors caught up with him. It was a case she knew inside out. All the nights holed up in her room, studying briefs and preparing for moot, ignoring Ron, turning down invitations to visit with Harry—it was all for the chance to do this.

"Probably," he agreed, "but if anyone can put Leland away, it's you."

She gave her mentor a grateful smile, but her heart thumped painfully, desperation gnawing at the edges of her excitement. Law had been her salvation for the past five years, and she'd applied ruthless energy to studying it. It numbed her mind and kept her just distracted enough that she wouldn't have to think. About anything. It was how she quieted the battles that still took place inside her long after the War had ended.

"Pull it together!" scolded Smithson through her mental fog. "It's all about confidence. You can't open a case with a scrunched up, worried look like that, Granger. You've prepared six months for this moment. We wouldn't have handed you Leland if we didn't think you were ready!"

"Yes, I know. Fake it till you make it," she recited smartly.

"That's right. Now, White, Hall, and Ward are on today," Smithson said, referring to the magistrates of the Lower Wizengamot who would preside over the hearing. "Generally aren't too bad a lot. They tend to be more lenient about Muggle-baiting cases, though. You'll need to push extra hard to prove malicious intent, but that shouldn't be a problem."

Her quill flew across the margins of her notebook as Smithson spoke. "Got it."

"And _don't _tangle with Alexander Murray."

She looked up from her notebook. "Counsel for the defense?"

"Yes. Dandy type, lots of women. You're just the kind of thing he'd want to sink his teeth into."

Hermione quirked her lips. "Not likely to be a problem, but thanks anyway, Gregory. Any more advice about _the case?_"

"Focus on how much trouble Leland was for the good folks at Muggle Relations. Arguments about how Muggle-baiting harms _Muggles _aren't very effective, I'm afraid."

Hermione huffed. "Imagine that!"

The room was starting to fill with people. A tall wizard in immaculately pressed robes appeared at the defense table. He flashed a radiant, insincere smile at her. Must be the hazardous Murray, she thought. From the other side of the room, Albert Leland was led in by a uniformed guard. The small, beady-eyed man took his place next to Murray. Hermione barely glanced at him. Best to stay focused. There would be plenty of time to stare at him during cross-examination.

Finally, the massive door behind the bench opened and the bailwitch emerged. "Court rise!"

Everyone shuffled to their feet. Two wrinkly wizards and a venerable old witch filed out, dressed in the rich navy hues of the Wizengamot. White, Hall, and Ward. She had tagged along for many months with Smithson when he went to court and had seen magistrates enter hundreds of times, but today, her first time in the role of prosecutor, she felt unaccountably awed by their presence.

The bailwitch trudged to the center of the room. "Be seated! Case number 5498672. Leland vs. the People. The defendant is charged with twenty counts of Muggle-baiting, one count of unauthorized transport of magical objects, one count of securities fraud."

Madam Hall, who sat in the middle, leaned back, straightening her cravat. "Very good. Shall we proceed? Ms... Granger, is it?" she finished after sneaking a peek at her notes.

Hermione stood and made her way around the table to take her place before the bench. Turning to face the magistrates, she happened to look for a brief moment at the assembled public. With a start, her eyes were arrested by the sight of a mousy, brown-haired woman sitting slightly crookedly in a wheelchair. The woman wasn't old, but the vacantness in her eyes and the disheveled state of her hair gave the distinct impression of life slowly seeping away.

"Ms. Granger? We are waiting." She was distantly aware of Madam Hall's voice speaking to her, but it sounded oddly muted, like Hermione was stuck underwater.

She struggled to tear her gaze away from the woman. She knew the woman was just an inconsequential member of the wizarding public, perhaps someone who had been swindled by Leland. She took a half step backward. _Of course _this woman wasn't her mother.

"Granger! What in blazing hell is the matter?" Smithson whispered urgently. Hermione hadn't noticed he had crept up beside her.

Sweat beaded at Hermione's temples. She took in great gulps of air, but it still felt like she was being smothered. Finally she yanked her eyes off the woman and turned fully to the magistrates, getting a glimpse of Madam Hall's stony-faced expression.

She blinked rapidly to clear her mind. Faces seemed to swell in magnitude around her everywhere she looked, floating menacingly in her vision.

She opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out.

_"Mum? Dad? It's me, Hermione!" she shouted to their unresponsive faces._

She batted her hand across the empty air beside her head, trying to chase away the sound of the unbidden memory. She wanted to say something, anything, but her head was filled with a dull-sounding roar and she couldn't remember a single word of her opening statement.

"Granger, sit down! Now!" Smithson roughly grabbed her by the arm and shoved her back toward the table.

Murmuring rose from everywhere in the courtroom.

Hermione froze, gripped by a different sort of trepidation. She had failed, utterly and truly failed.


	2. Chapter One

_**Wars of our Fathers**_

_A fan fiction by labrt2004_

_Chapter One_

_Written for debjunk in the Autumn 2011 SS/HG Exchange_

**Disclaimer:** None of it is mine.

_**Author's Notes: **__Thank you to my betas, la_syren and snarkyroxy, for your tremendous help. And thank you,__debjunk__, for the great prompt. And thank you mods, for another wonderful exchange! This story is shamelessly AU. I've basically just taken whatever bits of canon are convenient and tossed out whatever bits aren't. :) Hope you enjoy it._

_Dejunk's prompt: Severus Snape's heart has been sealed against women ever since the fiasco with Lily. He finds himself paired with Hermione Granger in some sort of working atmosphere and is not pleased. Things warm up to amiable at some point and during a discussion Severus comments icily that women are heartless users and are not to be trusted. Our resident know-it-all sets out to prove him wrong, and eventually succeeds._

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Severus Snape, headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, was not pleased. He paced irritably, robes aswirl. He had all his robes special ordered with a flutter charm, of course. It wouldn't do for him to appear as if he were wearing drapery. The robes made a satisfying _swoosh_sound every time he turned around, which he knew held idiot menaces like Harry Potter in thrall, thus giving Severus time to think.

"C'mon, Snape, you know I'm right," Potter wheedled.

Somewhere in the whole of Britain, Severus imagined, there must exist one other person who could teach Defense Against the Dark Arts. Potter was currently sprawled in a chair on the other side of the headmaster's desk, wearing an insolent smirk that made Severus' fingers twitch on his wand. Ten years had elapsed since the fall of Voldemort, but Potter still persisted in being a thorn in Severus' side. The fact that the boy now made Severus' life a living hell as his employee rather than his student represented no improvement. Not even death (however temporary) had succeeded in checking the boy's Gryffindor arrogance.

Severus cast him a glare. Respect for one's superiors was never one of Potter's strong suits. "Preposterous, and asinine, even for you."

"But why? Hermione would be perfect! Don't you remember how good she was in Potions?"

"I seem to recall a freakish ability to regurgitate the textbook," Severus sneered.

Potter had the gall to chuckle. "Get over it, she was brilliant. Who else in our sixth year class could have prevented Neville from accidentally sterilizing himself that one time he brewed the Contraception Potion wrong?"

"Please do not remind me. And even assuming a glancing competency in potions brewing, just what exactly would qualify Ms. Granger to take on the position of Potions Mistress here?"

Potter blinked once behind his owlish spectacles and looked at Severus as if he had grown an extra head. "Are you serious? Um, let's see, how about the fact that she's worked in the potions lab in the Ministry's Department of Mysteries for four years, holds patents for two classified brews, and she got certified as a Master two years after Hogwarts, which is the only real requirement to be Potions Mistress here, anyway?"

Potter was too gallant, of course, to mention that Granger had achieved Master status faster than any other apprentice in guild history, including Severus himself. Not that he needed it pointed out to him. "Be that as it may, Ms. Granger studied law, not Potions. She is not properly credentialed to teach it."

The boy scoffed. "Semantics and snobbery. You're headmaster! You make up the bloody credentials, why don't you just change them?"

"Faulty logic, as usual, Potter. The Board of Governors decides upon the prerequisites for each faculty position. I have little say in the matter. "

"Jealous git," Potter muttered under his breath.

Severus stopped pacing and leaned over his desk. "The answer is no. Perhaps it is your own employment that ought to concern you more," he growled. "Unless you wish to submit your curriculum summary for the Ministry review, kindly remove yourself from my office."

For reasons unknown, Potter smirked again. "Fine, have it your way, then. Here's her vitae. Don't forget Ginny wants you to drop by for dinner next weekend, Albus Sevvie misses you."

"Out!" As if sensing Severus' displeasure, the office door opened on its own accord. Wordlessly, Severus pointed to the door. With a negligent wave, Potter departed.

Severus sat slowly, kneading his temples. The demise of Voldemort had the perverse effect of elevating the mundane to the apocalyptic. With threats of imminent death no longer quenching everyone's thirst for drama, wizardom had found new crises with which to occupy itself in record time. He pointed his wand at the piles of rolled up parchment on his desk, contributions from his staff for the Ministry of Magic Decennial Budgetary Review. Flicking his wrist impatiently, he banished all the documents. It mattered little what priorities were proposed in them; the result would still be interview requests from nosy journalists, owls from irate parents, and blustering calls from the Minister.

Staffing decisions qualified as another hubris-ridden nightmare. With Horace retired, he needed not merely a Potions Master, but a new head for Slytherin House. Right now, the responsibility defaulted to him, and it would be too much. Granger could hardly be Head of Slytherin, with her blood running red and gold, he thought, reaching across his desk for the manila folder. It slid easily across the clean, polished surface.

Clearing the desk had been one of his first acts as headmaster. He had wanted none of the useless artifacts that had cluttered Albus' workspace. Not only did the various tinkling and tooting gadgets drive him to distraction, the overwhelming presence of his predecessor permeated everything, from the empty phoenix perch down to the curled accents of the hideous Baroque furnishings.

He closed his eyes. They were nothing but distant memories now, the years he spent at the mercy of his benevolent tyrant. Every now and again, he would still be reminded of the man who'd kept his grip around Severus' soul, even after death. But in the dark days right after... He'd had house-elves scourge the place. Only the towering bookshelves remained. And the portraits. He wasn't certain he could remove those, even if he wanted to.

Raising his head, he glowered now at Albus' sleeping form. "Well, old fool, is this another one of your blighted plans?"

The portrait showed no signs of having heard him and continued to snore lightly. Severus wasn't fooled. "As if you ever did anything as normal as sleeping," he said disgustedly.

The folder sat before him, still unopened. Severus' brow furrowed. Hermione Granger. It had been years since he had last spoken to her at the post-war Order of Merlin banquet and even longer since he had last taught her. But like all of Granger's professors, he had no trouble recalling her. A plain child with unruly hair, who by accident of circumstance had befriended Harry Potter. More to the point were her prodigious academic talents. Eleven O.W.L.s. followed by just as many N.E.

The last thing Severus needed was a swotty know-it-all to go with Potter, whom he already had on his staff. Not to mention Longbottom, hired through a foolhardy experiment in which Severus had blindly picked the highest scorer on an Herbology aptitude exam. At this rate, Ronald Weasley would show up demanding a faculty appointment of his own. He was running a school, not a rehabilitation program for war heroes.

Fingering the crisp edges of parchment, Severus opened the folder and idly considered its contents. He wondered why she had chosen to cloister herself in the bowels of the Ministry labs when any number of lucrative positions were available to her. He scanned the lists of dates on the document and was startled to discover that she had managed to obtain master certification while she was still in law school. Not all that shocking after all, he amended in retrospect. What was _actually_ strange was that Granger had abandoned law. Or that she had abandoned anything, generally. For all Minerva's effusive chatter at the staff table throughout the years, one would have expected Granger to be Attorney General already. Severus inspected the vitae more closely. In spite of himself, the beginnings of curiosity flitted through his mind.

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"No."

"Hermione, stop being an idiot!" Harry pleaded.

Hermione pushed the sugar bowl across the table to her friend. He scooped four lumps into his tea then stirred, spilling the liquid sloppily over the rim of his cup. A crease of frustration appeared on his forehead in the place of his faded scar, which was barely visible now. Ten years had wrought many changes in Harry, including the beginnings of a receding hairline, but his green eyes remained as striking as ever and could still stare unnervingly at her.

"Why? I have a job!" she replied mulishly.

"You mean you have a nine-to-five gig that you go to everyday where they make you do boring grunt work, take credit for all your ideas, and won't promote you even though you're a Master brewer because you're a girl!"

"I have my two patents..."

"Only because Ron threatened to tell the Minister that your boss was doing his wife!" Then he took a sip of his tea and gagged. "Aw, hell, Hermione, I'm no good with this tea thing, be kind to a bloke and give him some butterbeer, all right?"

Hermione sighed at the mention of her ex-husband, Ron. For all his failings as a husband, he had always been her champion and protector.

Getting to her feet, she headed into the kitchen, her thoughts troubled. She wasn't blind—she could see as well as anyone what a hash she'd made of her life. Her marriage had disintegrated after the disastrous Leland trial. Unable to set foot in a courtroom again, or even speak publicly without descending into mindless panic, she retreated into the quietness of a Ministry job.

Harry followed her from the drawing room. "This isn't still about your parents, is it? You can stop punishing yourself for that, you know."

"Oh, you are one to talk," she shot back. She _especially _did not want to think about that.

Harry cocked his head.

"You don't get to have an opinion about other people's choices after you willingly stepped in front of a Killing Curse." Hermione cleared her throat and opened the refrigerator. Even ten years later, saying it aloud still made her chest feel unnaturally tight.

Draped over the open refrigerator door as she rummaged through the drawers, Harry rolled his eyes. "It was the only way."

She lifted her head and met his gaze. "Still..."

"This isn't about me," he replied gently. "Your parents... "

Hermione glared at him, then pointedly returned to fishing the butterbeer out of the drawer and canceling the shrinking charms that had been applied to them.

Harry reached out and touched her arm, demanding her attention again. "You like Potions. You're brilliant at it."

She sighed and simply shook her head. Law had been her chosen daytime vocation, and Potions was merely supposed to be her lover in the night. She could always lose herself in the secrets of a brew, immersing herself for hours on end in the fragrant fumes that rose from the cauldron. But devoting her life to the pursuit of justice was supposed to be the catharsis that would purge her of all the things that had gone so terribly wrong. It simply never occurred to her that she would fail.

"So my job is a joke," she conceded to Harry as they ambled together back into the drawing room. "But Potions Mistress at Hogwarts? Really? Working for _Professor Snape?_" That should shut him down, she figured. How many times did Harry come over to her flat just to complain till her ears bled about Snape?

To her surprise, Harry paused in the midst of twisting off the butterbeer cap and sat up a bit straighter. "Hermione," he said, leaning forward earnestly, "I know I come in here all the time to harp on about Snape. But the truth is, he's not a bad man. Sure, he has insane criteria for awarding House points, and yes, he's partial to the Slytherins in a way that makes me want to throttle him. And yes, he's a complete git for banning the Yule Ball. But the thing is, he's decent at his core and fair. I don't need to explain to you the whole thing with my mum or his role in the War or what he did to keep the school together. And here's what else..." Harry paused, as if looking for words. "He's the first person after the War who wanted to give me a job not because of who I was, but because of what I could do. That meant a lot to me."

Hermione listened with faint amazement. "That's great, Harry," she said sincerely. "But even if Snape's a saint now, I can't do it." She could never undertake a teaching job, least of all, for Snape, even if he _was_shiningly on the side of the Light. She'd had more than a lifetime of humiliation already.

"You _can't _or you won't?" demanded Harry harshly.

Berating herself for the slip, Hermione crossed her arms. "Does it matter? I'm not going to do it."

"Why on earth not?"

For a brief moment, Hermione considered pouring out the whole truth. That she'd left the barrister training program in disgrace, that she'd been the worst kind of failure, and that she could never string two sentences together before a roomful of students, let alone teach them Potions . The confession sat at the tip of her tongue, eager to be spat out like sour milk. It had weighed her down for half a decade, but she'd never been able to divulge it to anyone, not even to her own husband. The mere memory of it had always been unbearable, enough to destroy her hard-won, fragile peace.

Even now, she couldn't tamp down the urge to flee. "I don't think I owe anyone an explanation," she said stiffly. "I have to go check on one of my experiments at the Ministry. You can let yourself out when you're done."

"Hermione—"

Feeling all of about two inches tall, she walked out of her flat, letting the door click softly behind her.

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_Reviews are much appreciated!_


	3. Chapter Two

_**Wars of our Fathers**_

_A fan fiction by labrt2004_

_Chapter Two_

_Written for debjunk in the Autumn 2011 SS/HG Exchange_

**Disclaimer:** None of it is mine.

_**Author's Notes: **__Thank you to my betas, la_syren and snarkyroxy, for your tremendous help. And thank you,__debjunk__, for the great prompt. And thank you mods, for another wonderful exchange! This story is shamelessly AU. I've basically just taken whatever bits of canon are convenient and tossed out whatever bits aren't. :) Hope you enjoy it._

_Dejunk's prompt: Severus Snape's heart has been sealed against women ever since the fiasco with Lily. He finds himself paired with Hermione Granger in some sort of working atmosphere and is not pleased. Things warm up to amiable at some point and during a discussion Severus comments icily that women are heartless users and are not to be trusted. Our resident know-it-all sets out to prove him wrong, and eventually succeeds._

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The next afternoon, a sweltering August Sunday, Hermione was sprawled on her sofa, trying to keep her mind occupied by flipping through yet another flawed biography of Albus Dumbledore, this one called, _Dumbledore: The Man Behind the Wizard_. Really, were all books about Dumbledore written by blasted tabloid journalists? Exasperated, Hermione tossed the book aside. She knew that it wasn't the biographer's mediocre scholarship that had her in such an ill humor. It was the fact that after driving aimlessly around the city for hours, she had come sneaking into her own flat like a common criminal at two AM, praying Harry would be gone. And finding her teacups washed and her tabletop wiped down, with a note pinned accusingly on the refrigerator:

_HG,_

Didn't mean to make you upset. Let's forget about all this and go have a drink next weekend at the pub.

HP

Sorry couldn't even begin to express how she felt. She sighed, pulling out a parchment and quill, and contemplated how to reply.

A loud knock on the door caused her to sit up with a start. She wasn't expecting any visitors. Looking down at her pajamas, she shrugged. It was probably just Harry again. Flicking her wand toward the door, she cast an Identity Charm just to be sure. When the words, _Severus Snape _scrawled their way across her wall, she yelped.

_Snape? _What in Merlin's name was he doing here?

"Just a moment, please!" She cast her eyes around frantically. "_Accio _hairbrush!"

Severus stared at the wooden surface of Granger's door, impatiently listening to the shuffling and rustling sounds emanating from within. He'd spent all evening studying her vitae. Her credentials were, as expected, outstanding in every way imaginable. A law degree from Oxford University, first honors. A collection of prestigious internships in London. Glowing references. Admittance to Nottingham Law School and Lincoln's Inn. Clearly not the record of a low-ranking government bureaucrat, Severus thought. He found the idea of Granger willingly choosing such a life so inconceivable that he had made the unusual choice of paying a social call.

The door opened, and at last, Severus beheld the great Hermione Granger, a vision in slippers, striped pajamas, and a knee-length housecoat. Her hair, as untamed as he remembered, was knotted loosely in a bun behind her head. Suspicious brown eyes peered at him, then grew larger behind glasses perched on her nose.

"Hello, Professor Snape." She wondered if there was something more appropriate to say to a man she hadn't seen in ten years.

Severus paused. Although he could hardly expect her to still be in school robes, he suddenly felt inadequately prepared for dealing with a Granger who was no longer a student. "Ms. Granger, good afternoon. I beg your pardon for disturbing you."

Hermione barely stopped herself from ogling. Some part of her, the sex-starved, divorced, male-deprived part, responded with a light fluttering sensation in her stomach. "Um, not at all. Please come in."

Stepping aside, she opened the door wider, and with a nod, Severus entered. He swept his gaze around the room and noted a clean, well-kept space, airy and eminently organized. Not the typical home of someone suffering a mental crisis, professional or otherwise, he thought with a wry twinge of disappointment.

"Tea? Or... butterbeer?" she asked carefully as he settled himself into a seat.

Snape glared. "_Butterbeer? _Really, Granger?"

Hermione bristled, then turned for the kitchen, muttering. "Well, sorry. I can never tell with you men. Tea it is then. Hello, Professor Snape, wonderful to see you again, too."

Severus listened to her incoherent rambling and frowned. Perhaps he wouldn't rule out mental incapacity just yet. As she exited the room, he saw the flare of her hips, and suddenly, he was noticing a lot of other things, as well. She was nothing like the gangly, awkward youth he'd known. Even beneath shapeless sleepwear, there was evidence of lithe, graceful curves, and an intrusive new awareness coursed disturbingly through him.

In the kitchen, Hermione's hands shook as she poured hot water into teacups and placed some biscuits onto a plate. She looked briefly at the spread, then switched out the mismatched tablespoons for proper teaspoons. Quickly, she removed her beloved but utterly unpresentable tin teapot, a gift from her mother when she was twelve. Nothing but the best ceramic for his Royal Starchiness, she thought grimly.

She returned to the sitting room, nerves jangling, and placed the tray on the coffee table. Snape was so much more... physical than she remembered. He still favored black after all these years, and his tall, darkly clad frame made the room shrink. He stared at her with inscrutable flint-colored eyes, giving her the urge to squirm. Or perhaps lean closer to him.

Granger blew steam off her tea, pursing her lips in a way that gave Severus heartburn. He cleared his throat. "No war trophies on display, Granger? I must say, I'm surprised."

She scowled. "This is about the Potions opening at Hogwarts, isn't it? I'm sorry you went through all the trouble of coming here, but I already told Harry, I'm not interested."

"You prefer being an undistinguished public servant and political lackey?"

"Yes," she said flatly.

He didn't have to be the accomplished Legilimens he was to know she was lying. Poorly. But it wasn't what she said so much as the brief flicker of unnamable emotion across her features that caught Severus' attention.

When he didn't say anything, merely staring at her in silent judgment, Hermione felt the familiar burn of shame and self-loathing, which was very quickly overpowered by irritation. "Try again, Professor. My record has hardly been undistinguished. Not everyone needs an Order of Merlin to feel important!"

One corner of Snape's mouth twitched at her unsubtle barb.

"And there is nothing wrong with working for the Ministry," she continued angrily. "First Harry, then you! What is the problem with the lot of you?"

"Perhaps a shared conviction that despite your much-vaunted intelligence, you've fallen quite short of expectations," he said in mocking tones. "You cannot convince me that you of all people derive pleasure from servicing ideological agendas."

Was that a _compliment?_Hermione decided it probably wasn't. "There are no agendas," she said through gritted teeth. "Voldemort's dead, remember? No one at the Ministry is plotting any coups—only research to support improvement of public welfare. Like fertility treatments to help women conceive."

"Quite convenient for a Minister who promises to disincentivize working mothers with tax breaks for homemakers."

"It helps scores of women suffering from infertility," she said crisply. In private, Hermione agreed with Snape's criticism, but she'd grown long accustomed to ignoring any personal misgivings about her work. "Not to mention homemakers deserve tax breaks for their unpaid contributions to the economy. I sleep perfectly well at night, thank you!"

"So touching, this display of full-throated support for your employer," said Snape.

Her expression turned brittle. "It's a _perfectly _good paycheck."

Severus sat in frustrated silence, studying her. Ignoring the strident voice of instinct, he demanded, "Why did you abandon your law degree, Granger?"

"Not that it's _any_of your business, but I didn't walk away. I simply became interested in something else, instead. Potions. I was a dab hand at it, remember?" she drawled.

"And law?" he continued unrelentingly. He leaned forward, eyes boring straight into hers.

Unconsciously, Hermione drew back.

"What was wrong with that?" he pushed.

"Nothing!" she shouted, her nonchalant demeanor disintegrating. "What's it matter to you, anyway?"

Since Severus actually did not know the answer, he remained silent, waiting for her response.

She turned away from him, unable to bear the intensity of his gaze. It had a hypnotic, searching quality that threatened to unearth all her secrets. She felt heat rise up her neck.

The quick flash of emotion appeared again, same as the one he'd seen when he first questioned her about her job.

Suddenly, Severus understood. "You're frightened."

"What are you talking about?" she answered coldly, expression shuttered.

"You left law because something frightened you," he stated. "And you won't take the Potions job for the same reason." He lightly pressed some Legilimency upon her, but unlike the days of her youth, she now had Occlumency well in hand.

"You're completely out of your mind," she said, even as her heart raced in her chest.

Snape leaned forward, his features hard. "Prove me wrong, then. Accept the Hogwarts position." He hid his surprise at his own impetuousness.

Hermione strove to keep her breathing steady. "Are you actually offering me the job?"

"Is that relevant, if you have no intention of accepting it?" he goaded.

She stared at him mutinously, refusing to rise to his bait. She would not be misled by the appearance of softer edges around his eyes, the sprinkling of grey hair, and the worry lines on the bridge of his nose.

He let the silence stretch out for a few moments before rising to his feet. "It was not my intention to disturb your Sunday, Ms. Granger. I will not impose on your hospitality any longer." She looked dully at him as he dipped his head in farewell and made for the door.

She followed him to the entrance, squinting as he retreated down the corridor. Being left alone was what she wanted, wasn't it? Yet, she had a distinct sensation of the world falling away from her as she watched him round the corner and disappear from view. An oppressive numbness filled her along with an irrational feeling of foreboding. Passing up Snape's offer felt terrifyingly final. It stoked something frantic inside her.

She stumbled blindly forward. By the time she caught up with him, he was out on the sidewalk already, about to Apparate. "Professor Snape! Wait!"

He turned, expressionless.

Her eyes were wet, a luminous honey color in the afternoon light.

"I—I'll do it."

888

_Reviews are much appreciated!_


	4. Chapter Three

_**Wars of our Fathers**_

_A fan fiction by labrt2004_

_Chapter Three_

_Written for debjunk in the Autumn 2011 SS/HG Exchange_

**Disclaimer:** None of it is mine.

_**Author's Notes: **__Thank you to my betas, la_syren and snarkyroxy, for your tremendous help. And thank you,__debjunk__, for the great prompt. And thank you mods, for another wonderful exchange! This story is shamelessly AU. I've basically just taken whatever bits of canon are convenient and tossed out whatever bits aren't. :) Hope you enjoy it._

_Dejunk's prompt: Severus Snape's heart has been sealed against women ever since the fiasco with Lily. He finds himself paired with Hermione Granger in some sort of working atmosphere and is not pleased. Things warm up to amiable at some point and during a discussion Severus comments icily that women are heartless users and are not to be trusted. Our resident know-it-all sets out to prove him wrong, and eventually succeeds._

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_What had she done?_

The refrain that had hounded Hermione all week long rang through her mind again as she watched house-elves levitate the last of her belongings, a trunk full of Arithmancy texts, out of her flat. Her life was literally disappearing from view, her possessions whisked away to some unknown location at Hogwarts. She stood in the middle of what had once been her kitchen, staring at the bare walls and emptied cabinets. She had been so fond of her cherry oak cabinets—and now their doors hung uselessly open, their contents gutted and shelves scrubbed clean.

What had she done, indeed?

She walked over to a window and peered blankly over Muggle London, tracing the wandering paths of pedestrians who were bustling busily past her building. She still had no idea what had overcome her, inspiring her to dismantle an existence she'd only barely managed to piece together. Or why she had allowed Snape to rattle her. She only knew that thoughts stuffed away after years at the Ministry had caught her off guard, and she wasn't expecting the raw pain. Terror had lapped at her conscience when she considered that the carefully crafted life she had consigned herself to living would be all she would ever know.

After he left, she had marched into her study, preparing to fire off an owl telling him she had been mistaken, that she wasn't leaving the Ministry after all. Instead, she had penned her two weeks' notice.

She closed her eyes and thought of Hogwarts. Of things she believed were beyond her reach, until she rashly accepted Snape's offer. She never allowed herself the luxury of wishing for what simply could never be. But that day, as she watched Snape leave, she couldn't stop it—stop subversive hope from surging back to the surface. The idea of a job in which she wasn't a tool for whoever happened to be in power at the Ministry or subjected to the constant buffeting of political winds filled her with such longing that her chest ached. An honest living, not a cowardly charade. She sucked in air, as if trying to push this foreign notion deeper into her.

Back plastered against a wall, she slid absently down to sit on the floor. She wondered how she was going to deal with the consequences of her momentary idiocy. Cradling her head against her palms, she tried to imagine herself standing before a class, lecturing from a textbook, or perhaps explaining the steps in a potion to a roomful of wide-eyed first years. What would she say? Her mind drew a blank as she stared at the rows of students in her would-be classroom. Her eyes flew open, and she wiped her clammy palms against her jeans.

The sound of her doorbell caused her to jump to her feet again. She knew it was Snape this time. He'd mentioned something about a contract that needed to be finalized. _Good_, she thought. She would just tell him now to forget about it.

Striding to the door, she threw it open. And found herself mere inches away from an expanse of black-covered chest. After a moment of stupefied shock, she managed to lurch gracelessly backward, tipping her head to meet his gaze. She took in the strong line of his jaw and the salt-and-pepper grey at his temples, her thoughts scattering like pixie dust. Snape crossed his arms expectantly, surveying her with sardonically amused black eyes. She flushed, brave words quickly dying on the tip of her tongue.

"Ms. Granger, you're nearly ready to depart, I see. We will need to seal the contract before you can enter Hogwarts."

"No!" Hermione said hurriedly. "Look, I can't take the job. You see, I-" She cleared her throat, trying to start over. This was much more difficult than she could have envisioned, with Snape looming over her, somehow inspiring again the treacherous indecision from last week. She grasped at her flagging resolve, searching for some way to explain the completely unexplainable. Snape waited with thinly veiled impatience.

She paced once away from him and then turned, eyes strangely beseeching. He was tempted to use Legilimency again. "Is there a problem?" he asked.

Snape's softly spoken query contrasted with the unyielding quality of his voice.

Unhappiness concealed for a decade tried to swallow her. Snape was the last person in the world to whom she could disclose the truth. "Yes," she breathed tiredly. "I'm really the wrong person for this job, Professor. I realize I agreed to it while completely blinded by emotion."

She angled her face away from him now, an odd mix of defeat and defiance evident in her stiffly held shoulders. Severus regarded her thoughtfully. It had been rather too easy to manipulate her into accepting the Potions job, and he did indeed question the recklessness of his offer. However, his interest in this skittish creature, such a striking contrast to the fearless student of his memory, had only increased after it became clear that something much more insidious than professional ennui was afoot in her life.

"Your qualifications are perfectly acceptable," he said calmly, which caused Hermione to jerk her head toward him in surprise. "Whatever it is that troubles you, it certainly cannot be that."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "You're being doggedly persistent about this."

Deftly side-stepping a topic he wished to avoid, Snape lifted a shoulder and said snidely, "Forgotten how to handle the reverence of the wizarding world? Surely you are used to being sought after."

"I'm not going to apologize for helping Harry defeat Voldemort."

He did not further press the point, returning instead to her recalcitrance. "The job. Have you truly set your mind against it?"

She bit her lip, still unable to furnish what she knew should be the right response. Her insides felt weighted with lead.

Severus sensed her to be at a painful crossroads; the burden of Albus' mantle upon his shoulders suddenly felt heavier than ever, leaving him quite out of his depth. He tried to imagine how his predecessor might have proceeded. Tugging at the collar of his robe, he said, "Ms. Granger, since you're clearly unwilling to elaborate, I have absolutely no idea what prevents you from accepting the position. I am sure you're aware that no one can force you into it—however, I will point out that I am fairly certain there is no such thing as an insurmountable obstacle for you."

This kind of reassurance from such an unlikely source caused something to twist through Hermione, opening a gaping void of vulnerability. The rebellious spark of hope stirred again, chafing at her already raw emotions. She stared down at the floor, hopelessly torn, as heat built behind her eyes. "If only it were that simple. I—wouldn't even know where to begin," she said, vaguely confessing, the last of her resistance to him in tatters.

He quietly stepped closer beside her. Tilting his head so he could find her lowered gaze, he said, "Let us complete the Fealty Spell. You can address any remaining concerns once you're at Hogwarts."

"Fealty Spell?" she said thickly. Her thoughts had turned to wool.

"Yes," he said, almost soothingly. "All employees entering Hogwarts must pledge allegiance to the headmaster in order for the castle to recognize them."

Lulled by the low, silky resonance of his voice, which seemed to carry a strange note of solace, and seeking something to fill the hollowness in her, she inched forward and stood wordlessly before him, head bowed.

She smelled faintly of something florid as he took a hold of her hand. She looked up at him, startled, though Severus was sure she understood what a Fealty Spell entailed. Warmth flowed between them as he grasped her fingers in his own. Her hair was swept behind her save a few stray wisps across her cheeks, allowing him an unobstructed view of her lightly freckled nose and a tapering chin. Blinking away his momentary distraction, he extended his other hand, which held his wand, toward her. "Your wand, Ms. Granger. Cross it with mine."

Snape's touch, steadying and solid, caused a sharp intake of breath in her. Dazedly, she moved to obey.

Severus hesitated a moment, debating the wisdom of binding her in her current overwrought state. His belief that denying her at this juncture would be at least equally incapacitating prompted him to begin the ancient incantation. A blue haze rose from their joined wands as Severus murmured in Latin, the cadence of his voice ebbing and flowing as he extracted from her the many layers of promises enjoining her to protect and defend the castle.

Hermione's distress faded as she watched, mesmerized. The spell energy that built between Snape and her burst at the end of the incantation and spiraled upwards before spreading to surround them both in a pulsing, glowing cocoon.

Snape's fingers tightened slightly, reminding her that she needed to say her part. Letting herself be anchored by his distantly determined gaze, she whispered, "I do so swear." The blue light changed to a blazing white that illuminated every last corner of the bare room before the spell dome enclosing them rapidly contracted, sucked back by their wands, swirling and churning as it spun out of sight.

The room was dark and quiet now, with only the filtered light of dusk throwing long, crooked shadows on the wall. They stood together in silence, hands still joined. Severus felt her galloping pulse against his fingertips while his own heartbeat thundered in his ears. He had never experienced a pledge binding quite like _that_. With magic powerful enough to heat the core of his wand.

Snape released her hand and stepped back, looking extremely disturbed. "Congratulations on your appointment, Professor Granger. See you tomorrow evening at the Opening Feast." With one last hard, baleful glance at her, he turned upon his heel and left.

888

_Reviews are much appreciated!_


	5. Chapter Four

_**Wars of our Fathers**_

_A fan fiction by labrt2004_

_Chapter Four_

_Written for debjunk in the Autumn 2011 SS/HG Exchange_

**Disclaimer:** None of it is mine.

_**Author's Notes: **__Thank you to my betas, la_syren and snarkyroxy, for your tremendous help. And thank you,__debjunk__, for the great prompt. And thank you mods, for another wonderful exchange! This story is shamelessly AU. I've basically just taken whatever bits of canon are convenient and tossed out whatever bits aren't. :) Hope you enjoy it._

_Dejunk's prompt: Severus Snape's heart has been sealed against women ever since the fiasco with Lily. He finds himself paired with Hermione Granger in some sort of working atmosphere and is not pleased. Things warm up to amiable at some point and during a discussion Severus comments icily that women are heartless users and are not to be trusted. Our resident know-it-all sets out to prove him wrong, and eventually succeeds._

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Severus looked up from absent-mindedly cutting his pot roast to see that the same pair of large, overly inquisitive green eyes was still fixed upon him from across the table. He put down his utensils with calmness, patiently faced the child, and asked, "_Yes?_"

At the end of the table, Ginny Weasley smirked into her napkin.

"Albus, don't stare!" Potter scolded, even as he did nothing to hide _his_ amusement.

The boy, barely eleven years old but already beset by a pair of thick-lensed glasses, went back to his dinner. Severus sighed and prepared to return to his own meal. This was _truly_ the last time, he promised himself. No more monthly dinners with the blasted Potters. He didn't know why he had ever agreed to venture into their home to begin with. He certainly hadn't been the one to suggest that the Potters name their spawn after him. Eleven years after the christening, and he still hadn't figured out a way to be rid of them.

"Mr. Snape?" This came timidly from a quavering voice across the table. It had apparently been too much to expect that the young man would stay chastened for long.

Severus gazed heavenward before answering. "Mr. Potter?"

"James said you got rid of all the pumpkin juice at Hogwarts and you're making everyone drink agrimony tea."

Severus turned to the elder Potter brother with a raised eyebrow. "Did he?"

James suddenly became extremely interested in shoveling carrots into his mouth. Ginny gave Severus a consoling smile and a wink, refilling his plate with another helping of pot roast.

Severus meditatively buttered a dinner roll. "I believe that your older sibling failed to mention that the night before, he and his fellows had attempted to brew what they called 'smartness potion,' which they then thoughtlessly distributed to their housemates. The result was forty students with diarrhea."

Albus' brow furrowed after he was presented with this new piece of information. He turned accusingly to his brother and hissed, "You said it was because Snape was using you to test potion ingredients!"

"_Headmaster_ Snape, Albus. You had better get used to saying it, since once you get to Hogwarts tomorrow, you have to start calling Mr. Snape that," Ginny admonished.

Albus considered Severus doubtfully. "Okay." After a pause, the length of which the boy decided was properly polite, he inquired, "So did James get detention?"

"Certainly. In fact, your father himself, as his Head of House, had the honor of administering it."

"You got detention from _Dad_?" Albus' tone was laced with scorn.

"Yeah," James muttered resignedly, face red. His father shook his head at him in disapproval.

"It would appear that you need better sources for your information, Mr. Potter," Severus opined.

The boy busied himself with chewing, looking thoughtful. "Erm..."

"More questions?"

"So, the ghosts. Are they nice? Do they, uh, hang around in the castle after... " Albus trailed off with a shrug meant to convey a world of meaning.

Severus looked at Harry incredulously.

"He has lots of Muggle friends," Harry said apologetically. "Guess Muggle ghosts are a lot creepier."

An extra-fastidious scrape of his knife was Severus' only response to this. Turning back to his intrepid interrogator, he said, "Yes, there are a number of ghosts at Hogwarts. If your question is whether they will bother you while you are asleep or otherwise engaged in daily life, the answer is no. If your mother and father were not complete disgraces to parenthood, they would have bothered to teach you common wizarding knowledge, and you would have already known that ghosts, at least those residing at Hogwarts, are quite harmless."

Potter's wife laughed, giving Severus the unwelcome impression that he was being humored in the same fashion as the children. "Oh come on, Severus, give him a break, he's only a kid. He'll know soon enough what Hogwarts is all about."

Ignoring her, he continued, "You are starting your first year with an older brother already in school and your own father on the staff, and if history continues to repeat itself, Head of your House." Severus pinched the bridge of his nose. "I will most likely regret saying this to you, but I truly believe you have very little to be worried about in terms of your personal safety, Mr. Potter."

"Don't look to me to haul your pipsqueak first year butt out of trouble," said James.

Harry grinned, defusing the effect of Severus' glare. "You've said quite enough today, big guy. Best keep your mouth shut."

The sounds of silverware scratching along plates signaled the end of the meal. Ginny waved her wand to clear the table, then excused herself to attend to the proofs sent to her by the wizarding marketing firm at which she worked.

"A word, if you may, Potter," Severus said quietly.

Looking at him quizzically for a moment, Potter nodded to the children still at the table. "Go on outside, boys. Enjoy your last day before term begins."

With a whoop, they slid out of their chairs, racing each other to the door, animosity from earlier in the evening apparently forgotten.

Once they had departed, Severus stood and walked over to the window. "Your friend Granger starts at Hogwarts tomorrow. I sealed the Fealty Spell with her this afternoon." The memory of the unusually intense effects darted across Severus' mind again.

He heard Potter quickly uncross his legs and sit up straighter. "I didn't know you were even considering her. You told me I was out of my mind when I suggested her."

He sighed. "And so I did. I... had not quite intended for it to go that far when I went to see her for the first time last week. I confess, I went simply out of curiosity—I really could not understand why a universally acclaimed prodigy such as her was unable to complete her legal studies."

"She got tired of it. She wanted to do Potions, instead," Potter said as if Severus had failed to grasp the obvious.

With a sneer, Severus replied, "That is certainly what she tells you."

Potter tipped his head to the side. "What do you mean?"

Severus began pacing before the window. "I am still trying to sort through my own thought processes, which ultimately led me to offer her the job. It is some undoubtedly misguided notion having to do with perpetuating Albus' legacy, or perhaps I simply wanted to see if I could push her into accepting because she is possibly the only qualified candidate in the field, anyway."

Potter frowned. "Okay, so you went to see her... and then offered her a job on the spot?"

"As I have been saying, I'm not entirely sure why," Severus said impatiently. "But a lot of it may have to do with the fact that I notice that... something is wrong with her. It is not my concern, but I imagine it may concern you and any number of her other devotees."

"Something _wrong_ with her?"

He pondered for a moment how he would respond. After all, he did not actually know Granger and would be a poor judge of what passed as normal for her. "She lacks the confidence that had allowed her to heedlessly gallivant about with you during your student years." Severus curled his lip.

Potter grew thoughtful. "How'd you get her to accept? I talked to her about it, too, she was pretty dead set against it."

"She was rather unwilling in the beginning, appearing preoccupied with some internal unhappiness. She accepted the offer in an emotionally charged state of mind and against what she believes to be her better judgment."

"Hmmm." Potter tapped a finger against his chin.

"I cannot help but note the irony of how you, who stared down a Killing Curse, should have this peaceful, well-adjusted existence—" he gestured all around him "—while she clearly lacks the same."

Potter flushed guiltily, which caused Severus to throw his hands. "Oh, for Merlin's sake, boy, I did not intend to imply that you are any less deserving. But simply..." Severus pulled out a chair from the table and sat before his former student, his robes pooling around him on the floor. "Potter. Did anything happen to Granger after the War?"

Potter reached behind him to knead the back of his own neck. "Hermione was always the most logical and steady of us three. She was also pretty private. She really wouldn't like for me to be saying stuff about her to you..." He fell into silence as he considered what to say next.

"I am trying to _help,_" Severus said with forced patience.

"I know. I was just thinking..." Potter's voice grew soft. "How pleased he would have been. You've... really done a good job honoring his memory, Severus. I'm just taking a little minute to reflect on that, is all."

Potter was looking at him a bit too earnestly, and Severus averted his eyes. "Albus was always excessively fond of redemption," he said, though it did not come out with nearly as much bite as he had hoped.

The boy nodded sagely, the warmth in his eyes making Severus' insides feel less of their habitual cold. "He was." Taking a breath, Potter continued, "But anyway, Hermione Obliviated her parents right before she left with us in our seventh year to go look for the horcruxes, sent them off to Australia completely stripped of any memories of her. After the War was over, she tried to undo the spell. Not only did it not work, but it damaged them even more, so now they are living in a Muggle institution."

Severus contemplated this, trying to fit what he had seen of Granger's behavior against the framework of this new knowledge.

"I have to say, she hasn't been the same since. She was still as brilliant as ever, continued to fly through school. But she never talks about her parents. I don't think she's even seen them since she put them in hospital. I know she still blames herself. That's really all I know."

"I do appreciate your willingness to disclose."

Potter nodded once, jerkily. "I never for a second thought there was actually something wrong with her. I thought she quit law just because she wanted to quit law. I thought law was mind-numbingly dull, anyway."

"You are in possession of neither her drive nor intelligence, Potter," Severus said snidely.

The boy rolled his eyes. "Yeah. You saying nice things about her is way weirder than you going all Dumbledore, I'll tell you."

Severus scowled. "It was merely observation, not a statement meant to contain any sort of opinion, positive or otherwise."

Potter snorted. "By the way, you were wrong at dinner today. I don't think Albus will be in Gryffindor."

"Is that so?"

"He's told me a number of times that he wants to be in Slytherin." Potter shook his head. "You have an adoring shadow of your very own now, Severus. Congratulations."

"What kind of fictions have you been feeding that brat?"

"Only the heroic ones, of course. He doesn't have a clue about the number Hermione and I did on you in the Shrieking Shack our third year. Let me know if you ever need help managing, since I do know a thing or two about hero worship..." Potter grinned broadly.

"If any offspring of yours ever sets foot in my House..."

"Then he's all _yours_. Good luck."

888

_Reviews are much appreciated!_


	6. Chapter Five

_**Wars of our Fathers**_

_A fan fiction by labrt2004_

_Chapter Five_

_Written for debjunk in the Autumn 2011 SS/HG Exchange_

**Disclaimer:** None of it is mine.

_**Author's Notes: **__Thank you to my betas, la_syren and snarkyroxy, for your tremendous help. And thank you,__debjunk__, for the great prompt. And thank you mods, for another wonderful exchange! This story is shamelessly AU. I've basically just taken whatever bits of canon are convenient and tossed out whatever bits aren't. :) Hope you enjoy it._

_Dejunk's prompt: Severus Snape's heart has been sealed against women ever since the fiasco with Lily. He finds himself paired with Hermione Granger in some sort of working atmosphere and is not pleased. Things warm up to amiable at some point and during a discussion Severus comments icily that women are heartless users and are not to be trusted. Our resident know-it-all sets out to prove him wrong, and eventually succeeds._

888

Hermione stood in the side entrance to the Great Hall, the one that led to the staff table. She smoothed a hand over her robe sleeve for the hundredth time as she looked out upon the four rows of Houses. The scores of gleaming place settings and the festive House banners caused her heart to skip a beat. She was here, finally, for better or worse.

It was foolish to pretend she didn't want to be here. At the conclusion of a sleepless night, she had risen, admitting to herself that in spite of her instincts to refuse Snape, she'd agreed to his offer anyway. She was still trying to work out _why._ Certainly, a stubborn part of her seemed to insist that she deserved something better than the Ministry, even given the impossibility of her succeeding here. But she also remembered the heady aftereffects of the Fealty Spell. Perhaps she was powerless to stop herself because of her fascination with _Snape,_ she thought, faint heat creeping up her cheeks. The thought was disturbing enough that she shook off her reverie and moved quickly through the doorway.

Forcing herself to put one foot before the other, she made her way to the empty spot beside Harry, flashing her friend a strained smile as she sat. Thankfully, Snape, in the headmaster's chair, was many people removed from her.

"Well, look who it is! Couldn't have given me some warning that you were coming?" Harry greeted her good-naturedly.

"Believe me, this was not part of the plan." She yawned, blinking through adrenalin-steeped exhaustion. "I spent all of last week trying to figure out how to get out of this. Almost did, too. Then Snape shows up, and the next thing I know, I'm bound to the castle."

"What did he do, hex you, or something? Not that this is a bad thing at all, I think you're way overdue for a new job."

She rolled her eyes. "No, he didn't. But I admit that I was stupid enough to let him talk me into it, even though this is still a really bad idea."

"Why? You'll be great! Remember when you helped me with the D.A.? You were an excellent teacher then. You were the one who came up with the D.A; teaching is part of your nature."

"Teaching is a lot more stressful than being a mere Ministry tool," she said flippantly.

"Hermione!" Harry said, chiding.

Hermione shrugged, tiring of the topic already. That was the closest she could bring herself to telling him outright. She was sure he'd find out soon enough, anyway.

Her attention wandered to the Slytherin table, where a rowdy group of older students, two boys and a girl, were parading down the aisle, laughing and elbowing each other chummily.

"Don't worry about those idiots. That's Middleton and his sidekicks. More money than brains, preening, self-absorbed twits, but generally harmless," Harry explained helpfully.

She watched them strut to join their classmates, the girl imperiously waiting for a younger housemate to struggle out of his seat and clear a space for her. She tried to gauge the terror she felt at the prospect of confronting such a group in a classroom setting, then decided it probably wasn't a smart move to dwell on that here, in front of Snape, Harry, and the entire student body.

"Malfoy?" she asked to distract herself, curiously searching the rest of the Slytherin table.

"Second year. Shockingly, not heading any little group of his own. And even more shocking, he's a good kid. Does his homework, cheats only once in a while," Harry quipped. She nodded, spotting the blond-haired boy about five people down from the bossy female.

They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes until Hermione noticed Harry giving her an appraising look. "Snape told me you didn't want to do this, but he somehow got you to agree to it anyway. What was that all about?"

It was easier to just be annoyed by her friend's prying curiosity than to face his concern, so she said the first thing that occurred to her. "Do you and Snape frequently discuss me?" she snapped.

"No," said Harry levelly. "But frankly, maybe _you_ should discuss it with _him._ He's your boss now. Or did you forget that part when you signed up?" he teased.

Merlin, how could she forget? The feel of Snape's hands holding hers was still ingrained in her mind like the crisp taste of chocolate after a Dementor attack.

Harry mistook her sudden flush as distress. "It gets easier," he reassured her. "Working with Snape. I've put up with him for years. Ginny invites him to dinner, you know."

"Yes, I'm frequently the lucky listener of your griping," she said dryly, determinedly repressing a bizarre sense of jealousy. She thought it was slightly unsettling that Harry had been practically socializing with Snape for close to a decade while she had managed to completely avoid him. It made her feel even more disconnected with the wizarding world and more the dysfunctional hermit she was. She imagined inviting Professor Snape to dine with her and Ron, then snorted.

At Harry's questioning look, she gestured that it was nothing important. "Just thinking it's a good thing I haven't run into Snape all these years. Can you imagine him having dinner with Ron and me when we were married?"

"Weasley, I see your table manners are exactly as I remember," he whispered in a snooty imitation.

She laughed, melancholy easing. Hogwarts, with its torch-lit walls and enchanted ceiling, felt familiar and comfortable. Perhaps it won't be so bad, she thought, and there might be some outcome to this whole mess that didn't involve utter humiliation.

Across the Great Hall at the main entrance, the first years were beginning to file in for the Sorting Ceremony. A stirring of nostalgia lightened her mood even more. "They just keep getting smaller and smaller, don't they?"

Harry nodded, eyes scanning the crowd. Hermione followed the direction of his gaze. "Oh, that's right, Harry," she said, remembering, "Albus is starting this year!"

"He is. You know, I can't believe I'm saying this, but I hope he really does get put in Slytherin just so he can torment old Snape for me."

"Are you sure it wouldn't be the other way around?" Hermione asked, alarmed. Albus had the look all first years had—glazed eyes, petrified expression, mouth slightly agape. "He doesn't look like he'd last a minute in Slytherin."

"Oh, you just wait and see," he replied indulgently. "All that cuteness is just for show." They both watched as Neville stood with the Sorting Hat, holding it over each first year's head as they climbed clumsily onto the stool.

When it was Albus' turn, the boy waved shyly to Harry first, then schooled his features into one of deep seriousness and sat. After a beat, the hat shouted, "Slytherin!" Albus' eyes popped open in surprise. From the Gryffindor table, James threw his father a look of dismay, as if he'd been the one to arrange this outcome.

Harry clapped enthusiastically for a few moments before he leaned his elbow on the table and peered around Hermione toward Snape. For the first time that night, Hermione chanced a glance in the headmaster's direction, as well.

Snape appeared unimpressed, responding to Harry's meaningful smile with only a mocking lift of an eyebrow. Then unexpectedly, Snape's eyes shifted over to her. He seemed drawn and tense, making Hermione wonder if the Opening Feast would soon go the way of the Yule Ball on the list of things Snape banned. Their gazes held for a split second, then swiftly, Snape stood, and the Great Hall abruptly fell silent.

"Good evening. You have all spent your holidays wisely and are prepared to return to your studies, I trust."

It was certainly not the same as Dumbledore, in either style or substance, Hermione thought wistfully, listening to the clipped precision of Snape's syllables. But to her surprise, she found that it didn't matter. Standing where Dumbledore had stood for so many years, Snape seemed to have inherited the old man's unmistakable authority and had no trouble commanding the rapt attention of the audience.

"We have in our midst an addition to the staff. Professor Hermione Granger will be teaching Potions."

Automatically, she rose to her feet, gripping the table edge tightly. A sea of faces turned to her, and Hermione felt like an exposed sapling in the wind, her stomach jumping a few inches into her throat.

"It's Hermione Granger!"

"Professor Potter's best friend! She helped him with You-Know-Who!"

As the whispers traveled like wildfire up and down the Great Hall, and she nodded uncomfortably at the deafening applause, Hermione's only thought was that they ought to be able to call Voldemort by his name. She pressed her lips tightly together and managed to sit.

She didn't realize how rigid she was until Harry nudged her. "Relax, for Merlin's sake, they're only _children._"

888

Hermione listened to her own magically recorded voice reverberating throughout the Potions classroom. The voice was explaining the uses of Swelling Solution to a room full of restless Slytherin and Gryffindor second years, her last class of the week. She walked about the aisle, inspecting the notes the students were taking.

"The active ingredient in Swelling Solution is puffer-fish eyes," her disembodied tones lectured. "However, as with all potions used to alter size, it needs boomslang skin as its base. For this reason, boomslang skin is also found in another, more well-known potion that alters size, in addition to many other things, in a drinker: Polyjuice Potion."

She caught sight of Samuel Turpin, one of the Gryffindors, furtively shoving a piece of parchment beneath the bench to his lab partner and best friend, Eric Chilcott. Quickly, she pointed her wand and the note exploded into shreds. The startled students turned chagrined faces to her. Hermione threw them a withering look, inviting them to challenge her. "Ten points," she hissed against the backdrop of her own recording. "Each." Then she made a slicing motion at her neck with her wand to dispel any still-remaining ambiguity. Grumbling, Chilcott and Turpin slumped back over their textbook.

Hermione sighed and returned to her inspection, feeling like a ridiculous version of Umbridge as she sailed her way through the classroom. The pre-recorded lectures were certainly not ideal, but they served their purpose. She knew her strange teaching style was now the fodder of many an idle lunchtime conversation, and probably not just among the students, either. But she really didn't care what anybody had to say. After all, this first week on the job could have gone far worse. She'd recorded her first lessons out of sheer desperation the night of the Opening Feast and was as astonished as anyone else to discover how well her solution had worked.

As she crossed the aisle, she saw Scorpius Malfoy grounding his puffer-fish eyes with the wrong end of the pestle. "Turn that around, Mr. Malfoy," she corrected.

"I—I read somewhere that stirring with the top end of a pestle could make an ingredient more potent," Malfoy said.

Hermione cocked her head, mildly impressed. "That is certainly true, Mr. Malfoy. But how large a size, really, do you want for your rose petal to swell? You'll have time for potion experimentation later in the semester."

Suddenly, she noticed the faint greenish tinge of his fingernails. The tell-tale sign of frequent exposure to valerian oil. Hermione frowned to herself as she turned away from Malfoy. She _had_ noticed odd amounts of valerian occasionally disappearing from her stores, but she never thought much about it. It was a common ingredient, used in a slew of Healing potions, none of which were truly dangerous. Of the few valerian compounds that _were_dangerous, like Draught of Living Death, she couldn't think of anyone who would want to brew them at Hogwarts. She shrugged. If Malfoy was stealing valerian, it was probably to make some moisturizing ointment for his female friends.

At the end of the class period, she was _Scourgify_-ing the surface of the lab benches when she saw Snape appear in her classroom doorway. Hermione's pulse picked up a few beats. He looked worn, but with an obstinate gleam in his eyes. "Would you mind sharing your expertise in Ancient Runes, Granger?"

"Expertise?" she quirked her lips. "A bit of an overstatement, but sure."

"Come with me to my office, then."

Hermione rolled her eyes at how he still carried himself like a stiff flagpole, calling her to his office as if she were a first year.

"First week ended well?" he inquired disinterestedly as they walked down the corridor.

"Well enough," she said.

"Your modern methods of teaching are creating quite the stir," he commented.

"Just an experiment. It helps me keep a better eye on the students. They have a tendency to blow each other up if not watched closely," she hedged.

When they reached his office, he directed her to the old, worn tome lying open on his desk, the ink faded and smeared. She peered at it. "These are Ministry of Magic meeting minutes. It just says, '6 June 352 A.D. let it be noted that Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry shall be chartered on this day.' Wow, interesting. We're that old?"

Snape sighed, clearly frustrated.

"Something wrong?" she asked.

"Not much more than usual. I was hoping to find a loop hole in the school charter that would allow me to dispense with the requirement of submitting a budget every ten years to the Ministry. It is a waste of my time."

"I guess this is not the answer?"

He sneered. "No, since some fool saw fit to note one thousand years ago that this is a Ministry-chartered institution."

He closed the book and handed it to her. "If you wish for a bit of light reading," he deadpanned.

Hermione's brows rose to her hairline. "Sure, I'll see what I can do," she said, accepting it.

She noticed him watching her closely. "Do you find this job an improvement over your last one?" he asked.

"Yes," she answered frankly. It was, in fact, a huge improvement, she thought. Even with the hassle of the magical recordings.

Severus found his gaze lingering on her, his attention once again wandering. She was striking, if not classically beautiful. Brown curls that refused to be contained, a becoming mouth, and a spit-fire personality. It was also not the first time he noticed the slightly shadowed eyes, which hinted at deeper troubles.

"Good," he finally replied after a beat. "Thank you, Professor."

888

_Reviews are much appreciated!_


	7. Chapter Six

_**Wars of our Fathers**_

_A fan fiction by labrt2004_

_Chapter Six_

_Written for debjunk in the Autumn 2011 SS/HG Exchange_

**Disclaimer:** None of it is mine.

_**Author's Notes: **__Thank you to my betas, la_syren and snarkyroxy, for your tremendous help. And thank you,__debjunk__, for the great prompt. And thank you mods, for another wonderful exchange! This story is shamelessly AU. I've basically just taken whatever bits of canon are convenient and tossed out whatever bits aren't. :) Hope you enjoy it._

_Dejunk's prompt: Severus Snape's heart has been sealed against women ever since the fiasco with Lily. He finds himself paired with Hermione Granger in some sort of working atmosphere and is not pleased. Things warm up to amiable at some point and during a discussion Severus comments icily that women are heartless users and are not to be trusted. Our resident know-it-all sets out to prove him wrong, and eventually succeeds._

888

Hermione was sipping a cup of afternoon tea, ensconced in student essays, when Harry's face popped into her office fireplace looking harassed and frantic.

"Hey Hermione, Chilcott managed to hex Turpin senseless in my class just now. He's going to need the hospital wing. Can you come over and watch the students while I take care of this?"

"Hold on, I—"

He vanished without waiting for a reply.

She dropped her spoon with a clatter onto the saucer, her tea suddenly tasting like acid. Swallowing rapidly, she dug her fingers into the arms of her chair. Perhaps she could call a different teacher, she thought frantically, or summon a prefect. She could even make a magical recording right now, this very moment. Shame at her own cowardice warred with a paralyzing fear, until slowly, it sank into her that she had no choice but to go, if only to dismiss the group of twelve-year-olds upstairs sitting unattended in a room full of dangerous magical objects. Filled with misgiving, she clambered to her feet unsteadily, shoved aside the essays, and flew toward the door.

As she hurried up the staircase to the Defense classroom, her knees shook like they were made of jelly. At the door of the classroom, her steps stilled, and she closed her eyes. The darkness behind her lids filled with hazy spots of light as she hovered precariously on the precipice of self-control. Giving herself an impatient shake, she determinedly pushed open the door. Students were milling around, talking excitedly. One chair lay upended near the front of the classroom, and a gaggle of Slytherins were standing near the cabinet housing the boggart, looking much too interested in the shaking contents. She quickly forced her way through the chaos to the front of the classroom, while chatter abruptly ceased in her wake.

She moistened her lips, feeling her jaw tense. "Sit," she croaked.

To her surprise, they all immediately sat. But this was worse, she thought. Twenty pairs of eyes now watched her expectantly.

She should know all the second year Gryffindors and Slytherins by name, but her mind was drawing a complete blank as she scanned the faces.

"It was Chilcott," someone supplied when Hermione failed to fill the silence. "He used a Brain Tentacle Hex on Turpin."

"Ruddy stupid spell," someone else replied.

"You idiot, why'd you use it then?"

"Shut-up, you want her to take away points?"

The sound of the students' voices bombarded her as a disorienting jumble, and the air felt thick and insufficient. Reaching behind her, she took hold of the demonstration table to steady herself. She looked helplessly from one face to the next, her lips moving but not speaking.

"Professor Granger?" one girl's concerned voice said. Hermione only heard her through the thunder of her own heartbeat.

A scrape of a chair sounded as someone hastily got out from behind their desk and ran for the door.

That seemed to push against something in Hermione's flickering consciousness. "Go!" she groaned. "Go!" 

888

Severus returned from a trip to the Ministry only to find young Malfoy prowling in front of the gargoyle guarding the headmaster's tower, shouting the names of random potion ingredients.

"Armadillo bile! Powdered asphodel! Aconite!" The boy threw up his hands. "Oh come on, just let me up to see him!"

"Good afternoon, Mr. Malfoy. I presume there is a purpose to this ear-splitting racket?" Severus asked from behind him.

Scorpius wheeled around, relief flooding his features. "Professor Snape! We need you in the Defense classroom! It's Professor Granger, sir. I think she's having a fit or something."

Severus' breath hitched slightly, but he merely nodded at the boy. "Professor Potter?" he inquired curtly.

"He went to send Turpin to the hospital wing after Chilcott hexed him, sir. Professor Granger came in after he left."

"Well, well, I am sure we will be having word with Mr. Chilcott," Severus said darkly as he sped away from his office.

He heard the mayhem before he saw it—the buzzing of many voices trickling down the corridor as he approached the Defense classroom, and Severus felt his alarm ratchet higher. With a wave of his wand, he threw the doors open. Students were jammed near the entrance way, talking noisily over each other.

"She said to go! Let's go already!"

"But... what's happening to her?"

"If you're not going to leave, then let me through so _I_ can leave!"

"Silence!" Severus roared.

He swept aside the students blocking his path. "Get out of the way," he commanded with a calm he did not feel. Quickly, he moved down the aisle, framed in a cloud of robes. "Granger?" he said, peering into her unseeing eyes. She was pressed against the table, breathing in tattered bursts. Her face was drained of color and covered in a sheen of sweat.

Hermione was vaguely aware of someone calling her name. A wand was touched against her temple. "Go!" she whispered hoarsely.

Severus drew back, expression grim. "Return to your common rooms," he barked at the students still hovering near the door.

Scorpius shuffled closer. "Sir?"

"You too, Mr. Malfoy," said Severus shortly.

The boy cast him an anxious look before following his peers out.

Pointing his wand in the air, he sent a Patronus messenger to Potter, then with a "_Defigo!_" warded the door.

In the newly fallen quiet, Severus approached her again, taking a closer look. Slowly, his wand settled near her hairline. "Be still," Severus said softly, though it was unclear whether she heard him. She was in neither a cursed nor potioned state, he realized. That left a purely organic cause, which only filled him with more questions and half-formed suspicions. He removed his wand, his hand shaking slightly.

"Granger," he tried calling her again.

She turned an unguarded gaze toward him, and Severus glimpsed a moment of raw vulnerability. Something unfamiliar and protective surged through him, causing him to raise a hand as if to grasp her arm. He stopped just short of touching her, fingers hovering uncertainly above her robe sleeve before he snatched his hand back as if he had been burnt.

It took Hermione a few moments to notice that the room had grown silent and that her heart was no longer racing. With a flinch, she discovered herself in the company of Professor Snape. After an instant of uncomprehending bewilderment, she recoiled with horror, spinning away from him as memory caught up with her. She hid her face but could not stop the hot tears of humiliation from streaming down her cheeks.

"This is why you didn't want the job." Snape phrased it as a statement, not a question. He walked around her and forced himself into her field of vision again.

She swiped angrily at her eyes. "It's all starting to fit together, huh?" she said bitterly. After two shaky breaths to suppress a sob, she continued, "And you'll fire me, I suppose." Needing to escape his insistent presence, she pushed herself a bit too rapidly away from the table, knocking a sneakoscope to the ground. Without sparing a look at it, she threw herself into a student desk and buried her head into her folded arms. She hoped he would leave her soon. Fire her, then leave her alone. She trembled as more sobs tried to claw their way out of her.

From within the crook of her own elbows, she heard Snape opening and closing cabinets and the tinkling sound of shifting glass. Then a faint rustling of robes beside her signaled that he was close by again. "Don't fight it," a surprisingly gentle voice said beside her ear. Something cold and smooth was pressed between her fingers.

Lifting her head, she found herself holding a phial of Calming Draught. The sight of it only served to worsen the overwhelming despair that was flooding her from her core. "I don't need this! Either fire me or get out."

"Do not be daft," he snapped. He waved his wand to uncork the potion, then leaned over the small desk surface, his face close to hers. "Drink it," he ordered silkily.

She glared resentfully, but sat up straighter and downed the contents of the cool liquid slid down her throat, leaving behind a syrupy aftertaste that made her grimace. As a placid stillness spread through her, the tightly wound knot inside her chest gradually loosened, allowing her to finally breathe. Wiping her face, she looked at Snape properly for the first time since he arrived. He had taken up the place she'd vacated by the demonstration table, his expression unreadable behind his veil of black hair.

"Uh, thanks," she said sheepishly.

"Would you care to explain?" Severus asked, keeping the timbre of his voice determinedly level.

She seemed to deliberate before responding, troubled by his question. "The Muggles call it glossophobia," she said at length, with obvious reluctance.

Severus had never heard of the term, but using the Greek cognates, deduced, "Fear of speaking?"

"Yes, fear of speaking in front of an audience, more precisely. And I've a rather... extreme form of it." It was a decidedly anti-climatic end to her years of careful secrecy. She waited for the expected feelings of shame to take over and was puzzled by the fact that she felt nothing but a sweeping relief. Snape didn't act as she imagined, either. He betrayed neither surprise nor derision, looking merely thoughtful.

"That is behind your insistence on pre-recorded lectures?"

"Right again."

He crossed his arms. "And the reason you left law."

This time, she was silent.

"You do not intend to answer?" he sneered. "Granger, has it not occurred to you that five years of meticulous avoidance has got you absolutely no where?"

"It was the only way to get by," said Hermione defensively. Her eyes acquired a bleak, faraway look. "After the War ended, everyone in wizardom was stupidly, unreflectively jubilant. People were drunk on happiness, and there was this completely ridiculous notion that collective civilization together had finally attained Nirvana."

Severus nodded in agreement, knowing full well the naive joy of the post-war world, as well as his struggle with the hero's absolution he was given, and was expected to accept.

"People forgot why it started almost as soon as it ended, and talked about the whole thing like it had been the biggest lark." She rose from her seat and wandered over to the bookshelf, needing something to do with her hands while she spoke. As she trailed her fingers over the cool ridges of bound leather, she said, "Everyone was just so terribly pleased by how well it'd all ended, but it's sheer lunacy to think that the things that precipitated this war could be fixed by the elimination of one foul wizard.

"The War _never_ ends," she whispered fiercely.

Severus listened with muted disbelief to her summarization of a reality that so completely paralleled his own. "An astute assessment, Ms. Granger," he answered, the usual hard edges of his tone absent.

She pulled out a misclassified survey of Dark Magic and reshelved it, using the action as an excuse to pause. Snape was an unexpectedly good listener. "I... couldn't deal with it, I guess. All the saccharine tripe, the total ignorance, and... other things."

Severus noted that she had not mentioned her parents.

"So I went to law school and worked. A lot. Ron hated it.

"But then... one day, I was standing to address the court, and I just... couldn't speak..."

He raised his eyebrows at this.

"...I tried, but nothing came out of my mouth. It was like I was falling off the edge of a cliff. It was a huge case, too. Albert Leland." Her shoulders slumped in the pose of long-haul resignation. "And after that, you can pretty much figure out the rest."

Severus followed her to the bookshelf and came to stand beside her. It was all quite clear to him now, the extent to which she had buried her grief. Ghosts of his own past, borne of a crucible identical to hers, flickered before his eyes

They were close, shoulders almost touching. Hermione felt her pulse quicken, as it always did of late, whenever he was nearby.

"I have found," he began measuredly, "that during the course of this war, it was staggeringly easy to slowly carve out pieces of the self, one at a time, in the hopes of merely surviving."

She did not reply, preoccupied by the startling realization that Snape, of all people, saw straight into her soul.

They stood together, in an almost companionable silence, until he spoke again, with diction as smooth as running water, "Speech—expression of the human mind—has long fascinated mystics of all persuasions. It is beyond the grasp of magic. There are no known spells capable of allowing one to speak a language one doesn't already know, for example."

"And?" she prompted, trying not to sound breathless.

"Your words are inextricably linked to your mind. Occlude while speaking if you must, but even better would be to tend to the matters that weigh upon the mind."

She frowned at this cryptic advice and opened her mouth to protest, but he held up a hand, placing his finger on her lips. "Trust that I know."

Neither of them seemed to realize what he had done, until the air between them slowly heated. She was already close enough to kiss; his raised hand moved to settle lightly into her hair, drawing her face toward his. As his fingers cupped her head, her eyes drifted closed, lashes feathering against her cheeks. His arm came around her, encircling her in a tentative half embrace. She was surrounded by the scent of elf-laundered robes, after-shave, and the faintest trace of potions. Fevered and restless lips grazed across her forehead, then to her temples, but fell away before they reached her mouth.

Her skin burned everywhere he touched, and she leaned into him, aching for more. But with shaking breath, he murmured into her ear, "I was not suggesting this course of action, Hermione." He took an errant strand of hair and tucked it with the rest, fingers leaving trails of fire down her neck.

With effort, he released her, arousal clouding his senses. "You are, I hope, well now?" he said, voice unnaturally deep.

In a daze, she nodded.

He walked to the door and unwarded it, then stopped again, hand resting on the handle. "Granger," he said quietly, turning around. "It is the truth. You cannot overcome it by forgetting."

888

_Reviews are much appreciated!_


	8. Chapter Seven

_**Wars of our Fathers**_

_A fan fiction by labrt2004_

_Chapter Seven_

_Written for debjunk in the Autumn 2011 SS/HG Exchange_

**Disclaimer:** None of it is mine.

_**Author's Notes: **__Thank you to my betas, la_syren and snarkyroxy, for your tremendous help. And thank you,__debjunk__, for the great prompt. And thank you mods, for another wonderful exchange! This story is shamelessly AU. I've basically just taken whatever bits of canon are convenient and tossed out whatever bits aren't. :) Hope you enjoy it._

_Dejunk's prompt: Severus Snape's heart has been sealed against women ever since the fiasco with Lily. He finds himself paired with Hermione Granger in some sort of working atmosphere and is not pleased. Things warm up to amiable at some point and during a discussion Severus comments icily that women are heartless users and are not to be trusted. Our resident know-it-all sets out to prove him wrong, and eventually succeeds._

888

"Wow, Hermione, I can't believe all this time, I didn't know," Harry said. "I really thought law had made you churlish. I feel like a total cad."

They were sitting in her private chambers, a shared plate of cookies between them. She had invited Harry over on a Saturday afternoon, when most of the students were in Hogsmeade, and they had time for her to fully recount her story. Without the last part, of course.

"Well, I wasn't exactly forthright about it, was I? Not even Ron knew." she said, blushing slightly. "It seems so silly in retrospect, bottling it up all those years. But at the time, it seemed to make sense. Don't think about, don't talk about it, and maybe it'll just go away." She sighed. "And now the whole bloody school knows."

Harry picked out a chocolate chip cookie from the pile. "James thinks you were possessed," he offered cheerfully.

"Thanks a lot," she snapped.

"It'll blow over soon enough."

"I guess you of all people would know." She idly tapped her fingers on the table. "That was part of the reason, you know. I didn't want to look like a melodramatic idiot with mental problems when _you_ were holding up so gracefully, even after all that you'd gone through."

"That's rubbish. I was the freaking Chosen One, Hermione, you think I got to get away scot-free after the War? I went through no less than five therapists. Ginny almost divorced me!"

Hermione frowned. "I didn't know about this."

"Of course you didn't. You were in law school."

She smirked. "Naturally."

"So it was Snape who found you?"

"Yes, it was absolutely ghastly. He saw me catatonic in the front of your classroom. I'm surprised he hasn't sent me packing yet. I was so sure he would."

"He won't," Harry said confidently.

She looked curiously at him.

"Cruelty and vindictiveness isn't really his style anymore. Hasn't been since Voldemort fell," Harry explained. "He's more of the brooding, repressed, tortured soul type."

"Oh," Hermione said. There wasn't anything repressed about how he had kissed her, she thought. As if her position at Hogwarts wasn't fraught with enough peril already, she now had to contend with the dark, sensuous appeal of Severus Snape.

888

Hermione sat in her office, drumming her wand against her desk. She could hear the first year Slytherin and Gryffindor students filling up the classroom outside. She took a deep breath. Snape had said to Occlude her mind. She thought she'd take an extra step, beyond that, just for good measure. Placing her wand next to her head, she slowly pulled out her memory of the Leland trial. The silvery substance glowed as it emerged, snaking around her wand tip. Carefully, she deposited the memory inside a Pensieve, then placed it inside a drawer and locked it. Extracting the memory certainly wouldn't make her forget the day ever happened, but maybe it would dull its effects enough so that she could keep it together in front of the class.

She still couldn't quite believe she was going to attempt this so soon after the disaster last week. Snape certainly wasn't the motivating sort. That is, unless one counted the seductive voice, she thought with a blush. But his understated encouragement and instinctive understanding had given her the courage to attempt what she had never dared. Just in case, she had also pre-recorded today's lecture, which she could fire off with a flick of the wand if needed. The thought made her feel better.

Closing her eyes, she blocked out everything from her mind and focused on a wintry snowstorm, her anchor image for Occlusion.

The captivated silence that greeted her when she entered the classroom a few minutes later should have come as no surprise, she observed wryly. Strolling to the lectern with only a faint hitch in her breathing, she turned to look at the class. The rows of blank faces, the sensation of being scrutinized by dozens of intrusive eyes, all made for a nerve-wracking case of deja vu. However, Occlusion holding steady, she walked to the chalkboard and wrote, "Boil Cure Potion" with a flourish.

"Today, you will be making the Boil Cure Potion," she announced. She paused, noting her still-steady heartbeat and breathing. "The purpose of this potion is self-explanatory. If you've done your reading assignment for today, you would know that the porcupine quills should not be added until _after_ the potion has been taken off the flame. Failure to follow this instruction yields results that are not pretty. You may all consult Professor Longbottom for more details," she said with a smile.

"Now, who would like to tell me why we use stewed horn slugs in this potion?

"Mr. McDonald?"

She closed her eyes for a moment. This was _wonderful._

888

Hermione was straightening the ingredients cabinet at the end of the class period, flush from her own success, when she saw Albus Potter appear in her peripheral vision. "What can I do for you, Mr. Potter?"

"Ma'am," he said softly, wringing his hands.

She looked up from scooping dried nettles when she heard the tremulous tones. "What is it, Albus?" she asked kindly.

"One of my housemates is in trouble." He glanced shiftily at the doorway, as if considering whether staging a quick exit were a better solution to his problem.

Hermione could think of twenty different possibilities, none of which were pleasant, so keeping her face neutral, she asked, "Yes?"

"Actually, one of them is in trouble, and another one of them is sort of helping them. Well, not helping him be in trouble, but helping him get _out_ of trouble, but he might get in trouble for doing that."

Her mind spinning, and anticipating a protracted discussion, she sat down behind her desk and waved Albus into a chair. "Why don't you start at the beginning?" she sighed.

"Um, the friend, not the one who's in trouble, but the one who might get in trouble, can he come in, too?"

She rolled her eyes. "Why not, Mr. Potter?"

As if on cue, the classroom door opened, and to Hermione's astonishment, Scorpius Malfoy entered. Instantly, she recalled the stains she had observed on his fingertips and the ingredients missing from her stores.

Malfoy walked purposefully down the aisle, his expression taut. "Professor Granger," he said.

Hermione nodded to him and looked between the two students, waiting for further explanation.

"Scorpius didn't want to tell anyone," Albus blurted out. "But I told him he should and I convinced him to tell you."

"What is it, Mr. Malfoy?"

Malfoy, she noted, had his father's poise but not the same calculating menace. "I've been brewing a restricted potion, ma'am," he said. "Wolfsbane."

Hermione jerked with surprise. Of all the possible potions utilizing valerian that she imagined errant students were brewing, Wolfsbane was at the bottom of the list.

"May I inquire why?" she asked.

Neither student spoke. Hermione's alarm increased as she sternly stated, "Malfoy, Potter, this is a very serious matter. I happen to know, as you've no doubt guessed, Mr. Malfoy, that at least one school ingredient has been illicitly procured for this potion. Now, the truth, if you will."

Malfoy walked up to her desk and lifted his chin defiantly. "A friend of mine in Slytherin was bitten. Over the summer holidays. It was a complete accident—he ran into a werewolf while he was vacationing in Hungary. He comes from a very... strict family and he couldn't tell anybody. He's afraid of being disowned."

Hermione's mouth dropped open. "_Who?_" she gasped, thunderstruck.

"We can't tell," Albus muttered. "We promised. The rest of the House would tear him apart. Not to mention... Headmaster Snape."

"_You,_" she said, rounding on Albus, "ought to have known better. Does your father know?"

"Merlin, no! Why would we tell him?"

"A werewolf in the school! Taking potions brewed by a second year student!" she said, voice rising. She took a moment to force herself to calm. She was going about this all the wrong way—she didn't want the students to feel regret for confiding in her or conceal information for fear of retribution.

"Why did you come tell _me?_" she asked quietly.

Malfoy eyed Albus before replying. "Albus said you'd understand. That you'd done the same thing once, when you were in second year, with Polyjuice Potion."

"Merlin save me from Slytherins," she murmured.

"It's... it's getting harder to conceal, ma'am," Malfoy admitted in a low voice. "We... put him in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom the night he has to transform and give him the potion. We cast _Silencio_ on him to keep him quiet. But we can't just keep standing around in the corridors to make sure no one goes in there. Albus borrows his dad's invisibility cloak sometimes to check up on him—"

Albus elbowed Malfoy, casting him a disgruntled look for further implicating him.

Hermione's hands went to frame her temples. "All right, boys, I've heard enough now. We are going to take a trip to the headmaster's. Who, I might add, is also your Head of House! This is out of my hands now."

"No!" they cried in unison.

She quirked an eyebrow.

"Professor Snape would expel us! And our friend, too!" Albus explained in a rush.

Even though it was entirely the wrong thing to say, Hermione couldn't help asking curiously, "And you believed I wouldn't?"

"Well... no," Malfoy said, cheeks coloring slightly. "Because of..."

She sighed in exasperation. "Albus, you are never to tell that story again to anyone in this school!" Returning to the matter at hand, she said, "Now, this is unfortunately something for the headmaster to handle." At their stricken looks, she softened. "You did the right thing, boys. Your friend could seriously endanger himself or other students. Professor Snape... will have everyone's best interests at heart," she finished, hoping fervidly that she was right.

Some minutes later, with the two students in tow, Hermione stood on the spiraling staircase leading up to Snape's office. They emerged to the sight of Snape sitting at his desk, head bent over a grimoire while scratching notes furiously with a quill. He glanced up when they entered, expression sour at being interrupted.

When he saw that it was Granger, Severus lifted his brow, his thoughts immediately straying to their last encounter. Their eyes met for the briefest of moments, before Granger hurriedly presented her charges. Potter and Malfoy? Severus thought incredulously.

"Hello, Headmaster. I've brought you young Mr. Potter and Mr. Malfoy. They both have some interesting information to share." She pressed the both of them into chairs.

The boys looked first at each other, then at Granger.

"Go on, now!" she prompted.

"Yes, I do not have all day," Severus snapped.

Granger, for some unaccountable reason, shook her head at him imperceptibly, a pleading look in her eyes.

Scorpius sat up straighter in a haughty imitation of his father. "Professor Snape, we have a werewolf in our midst," he began dramatically, evidently believing this to be his best opening.

Hermione huffed impatiently, while Snape leaned back and said in bored tones, "Do we really, Mr. Malfoy? Is that all?"

There was a tense moment of silence before Albus' expression turned into one of defeat. "Scorpius has been brewing Wolfsbane for him."

At this, Severus put down his quill. "You have been doing. _What?_" he demanded. "And _who_ is this individual in question?"

"Please, sir! We can't say. He was bitten over the summer! Even his parents don't know. If the rest of Slytherin finds out, he'd be doomed!" said Malfoy hurriedly.

"So, am I to understand that a second year student has been brewing a Category Three restricted potion, giving it to a werewolf, who is unidentified not only to the Ministry, his family, but also the peers with whom he associates?"

"It's not his fault!" Malfoy said hotly. "He can't help being a werewolf! Sir."

Even Granger blinked at the impassioned outburst.

"Well, well. I am relieved to see that you at least are not as stupid as your father."

Granger looked disapprovingly at him as the blond boy flushed. "It doesn't get us anywhere insulting Mr. Malfoy's father, Headmaster," she scolded.

Severus ignored her and continued questioning the boy. "And were you actually certain you were brewing Wolfsbane and not poison?"

"I had a text," said Malfoy. "One of Father's. When I heard that... the friend got bitten, I tried to make it at home first and um... I paid someone in Knockturn Alley to test it on a werewolf."

Too overcome by fury to consider this latest twist in Malfoy's tale, Severus turned to the silent Potter. "And just how exactly do _you_ figure into this?"

"I suggested Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, sir. That's where we put him when he transformed. And I used Dad's invisibility cloak to look in on him. Oh, and I convinced Scorpius to tell Professor Granger." The boy licked his lips. "Um... that's it."

Severus sneered. "Flouting rules already, just like _your_ father. I stand corrected regarding the statement I made about your personal safety, Mr. Potter."

He took a moment to survey the boys one last time. Satisfied that he had obtained most of the crucial facts, but for one, he pulled open his desk drawer and held up an amulet of clear solution. "Either you will tell me who your associate is, or I will resort to... other means," he said.

"Professor Snape, no!" Granger shouted, inserting herself physically between him and the students. "They're just children, not to mention it's illegal!"

Hermione was horrified. She knew she shouldn't have hoped Snape would handle the situation in a sane, logical fashion.

"Do not interrupt me, Professor!" Severus said crossly. "This," he continued, gesturing, "is a potion that will reveal any werewolf, veela, elf, or anyone not fully human upon consumption. I may decide to simply slip some in the pumpkin juice."

Hermione's jaw dropped for the second time that day. "Not... Veritaserum?"

He glanced condescendingly at her. "No, Granger." Returning his attention to the students, he said, "If you prefer to reveal the identity of your friend during breakfast at the Great Hall, that is certainly your prerogative."

The two boys eyed the potion with fear. Malfoy shook his head frantically. "We _can't_ sir. His father would throw him out on the streets!"

Severus drew a breath, attempting for patience he didn't have. "If you do not tell us and allow us to help him, he is as much a danger to himself as he is to others. You are, I'm assuming, pilfering ingredients from Professor Granger or obtaining them through some equally dubious channel. Vastly experienced as you may believe yourself to be, a second year student cannot possibly be brewing this potion correctly."

Malfoy merely shrugged.

"Do not doubt it, Mr. Malfoy," said Severus sharply. "For one, Wolfsbane requires the strength of an adult wizard's hand to stir during one of its brewing phases."

"Yeah, I kinda got Albus to help a little with that part."

Hermione cringed at this. She continued to listen to the exchange, pointedly remaining silent now. She wished now she hadn't interrupted earlier.

Severus met this latest communication with a glare. "We would be certain to give your comrade _properly_ brewed potion. As for your concerns about the young man's parents, let me worry about that. If these parents are truly as you describe, chances are, we go back... a long way," he said with distaste.

Scorpius seemed to understand this quicker than Albus. "Do you promise, sir?" he asked, hesitantly.

To Hermione's amazement, Snape sighed and took out his wand. "You have my word, Mr. Malfoy. Wizard's oath."

The two boys looked at each other again. Albus scratched his head, then nodded, looking slightly flummoxed.

"All right. It's Goyle. Luke Goyle," Malfoy whispered.

"Ah. Mr. Goyle. Yes, I do see the potential for difficulty," Severus drawled.

They both adopted hopeful expressions at the appearance of sympathy.

"We are not yet done," said Severus, and their faces fell. "There is still the matter of your punishment."

Granger fidgeted.

"Something you have to say, Professor?" he inquired, lightly.

She flashed him a rueful smile. "Only that they _did_ come to me."

"Yes," he said disdainfully. "_After_ they stole potions ingredients, brewed a restricted potion without authorization, exposed their peers and themselves to mortal peril, and wandered the castle after curfew."

Potter and Malfoy turned quite pale.

"One hundred points each from Slytherin, and a week's detention. And Potter, a note to your father." Severus pronounced.

They both groaned, and Granger appeared chagrined.

"And for having the sense to finally inform an adult, exceptional potion-making skills, and admirable efforts to protect a fellow from persecution, fifty points each _to_ Slytherin."

All three of them stared at Severus, uncertainty clouding their features.

"That will be all. I will send for Mr. Goyle at a later time."

The boys flew out of their chairs as if they had been shot out by cannons. "Th-thank you sir," they chorused.

Hermione stood by the door, shooing them out. "Get out of here before he changes his mind," she whispered.

After the students filed out the door, she turned and looked at him, expression unreadable. Then, to Severus' dismay, she burst into peals of laughter.

He had never seen her laugh before, not even when she was a student. The sound of it filled the room, and something about the uninhibited emotion rendered him temporarily speechless. Color bloomed on her cheeks and her beguiling eyes sparkled.

"Something funny?" he bit out at last.

"It's just... oh Merlin, wasn't that ridiculous? Second years brewing Wolfsbane! You making a Wizard's oath to a twelve-year-old."

Severus' mouth twitched. "Certainly bordering on the absurd," he agreed grudgingly.

He noted the purplish shadows starting to creep across the room. "It is past the dinner hour," he observed. "It seems Mr. Malfoy and Mr. Potter will have to endure missing their last meal for the day in addition to their extensive list of other punishments."

Snape closed his eyes briefly and in a flash, a dinner tray set out for two appeared before them. When he saw it, he seemed as surprised as Hermione. "It look like the house-elves have decided you are dining here tonight." He regarded her with a fathomless gaze. "Would you care to join me?"

"Sure," Hermione murmured, vaguely pleased. She settled into a chair opposite him. "So you sorted out this whole Wolfsbane business very well," she said with sincere admiration.

"I noticed you were not entirely convinced I could," he responded acerbically.

She smiled. "Certainly a grave error on my part, I admit. It was very kind of you to reassure Malfoy."

When he didn't respond immediately, Hermione thought she might have offended him, but then he took a sip of water and said quietly, "I know what it is like to come from a household such as Mr. Goyle's."

She waited for him to say more, fork suspended over her plate.

"Living in fear, constantly craving the approval of an abusive adult."

"Your... family?" she asked carefully.

Severus shook his head grimly, black hair falling before his face. "To call it thus would have been overly optimistic." She continued to look at him steadily, with no sign of censure or effusive sentiment. He found that he did not mind continuing. "My father was a drunkard who beat my mother, and occasionally, me. Though it became more difficult for him to attack me once my magic started to manifest."

His eyes were haunted in a way that tugged at Hermione's core.

"So. I am fully aware of the importance of discretion for Mr. Goyle."

She finally managed to place her fork upon her food. "What are you going to do about that?"

Severus' lip curled unpleasantly. "There is always a thing or two to hold over the head of a former Death Eater. Myself included. We find that we can easily convince each other to do things if we knock around long enough among the skeletons in the closet."

Her expression turned troubled. "Does that you mean you're..."

"Constantly in danger of getting visits from my old crowd? Unfortunately, yes, though most of the bottom-feeders come looking for favors. The death threats have decreased as the years have gone on." Snape's eyes hardened, his features suddenly twisting into those of the ruthless man he had once been forced to be.

He placed his napkin on the table and stood to walk to the window. He gazed out of it, seemingly lost in thought, as Hermione quietly continued with her dinner, knowing instinctively that he needed to be alone.

At length, he spoke, his voice sounding far away, "I was wondering, Granger, whether you would consider becoming Head of Slytherin House."

Hermione's eyes widened and she almost spewed her tea. "I'm a Gryffindor," she answered stupidly through a wheeze. She turned to face him.

"I hadn't noticed," said Snape sardonically. "Contrary to popular belief, there is no requirement that Heads of Houses be of the same House they oversee, though of course, that has been the tradition. I have responsibilities as headmaster that severely limit the time I can devote to my House. It is not an arrangement I'd like to continue."

Rising to join him at the window, Hermione said, "You don't think I would be too partial to Gryffindor?"

"Surprisingly, no. You were of course, not an obvious choice when you arrived, for exactly the reason you state. But..." Snape looked pensive. "You have considerable rapport with your Slytherin students. You appear to take interest in their affairs while they are in your classroom. And just today, you shepherded a pair of Slytherins through a complex situation with aplomb... even advocating on their behalf to their own Head of House," he finished with an actual smile. "Sometimes to the point of overzealousness."

Hermione heard all his points with pleasant astoundment, pleased that her efforts had been acknowledged. She frowned however, when a new thought struck her. "But I'm a Muggle-born," she pointed out. "In any other House, it wouldn't matter, but I'm not so sure..."

Snape's mouth thinned into a harsh line. "Does Mr. Potter appear to care? Does Mr. Malfoy?" He stepped closer. "When does this idiocy end? It is ten years post Dark Lord—Goyle still wants to evict his child for being a werewolf, and Scorpius, as well-intentioned as he believed himself to be, thought himself clever to test potions on one." He spun away to gaze out the window again. When he spoke, he did so with an undertone of weary hopelessness. "I have labored for over a decade to undo the toxic ideas that Voldemort, the Ministry, and sheer ignorance have instilled in this school. It's still not clear whether I have managed to make any progress at all. Slytherin House needs someone like you to helm it."

Hermione, feeling the warmth of compassion, respect, and a stirring of kindred spirit, reached out and took his arm. "Of course I will do it."

"Thank you," he replied, looking down at her.

As their gazes connected, heat sprang up between them, an almost familiar sensation now, quick to ignite. Hermione became aware of the feel of solid muscle beneath her fingertips as involuntarily, her grip tightened.

Severus drew an unsteady breath, his body responding to her sudden proximity. His hands, with a light touch made practiced from Potions, pulled her face close to his. He didn't understand why he continued to be drawn by her like a bee goes after honey. A mere brush of her fingertips had been enough to send his senses into overdrive.

"It is... much appreciated," he murmured as he ran his lips over her brow and across her nose. This time, he would not deny himself. Angling his jaw to the side, he captured her lips, a groan of contentment sounding in the back of his throat as he tasted them.

"Severus," Hermione breathed. She felt weightless as his arm came around her waist, pulling her roughly against hard, masculine chest. He kissed her, languorously, and she felt the burn of long dormant need.

His lips lifting a bare inch away from hers, he whispered, "Hermione. Stay."

As she sealed their kiss again, signaling her agreement, she said breathlessly, "Well, this is certainly more impressive than the Astronomy Tower."

888

_Reviews are much appreciated!_


	9. Chapter Eight

_**Wars of our Fathers**_

_A fan fiction by labrt2004_

_Chapter Eight_

_Written for debjunk in the Autumn 2011 SS/HG Exchange_

**Disclaimer:** None of it is mine.

_**Author's Notes: **__Thank you to my betas, la_syren and snarkyroxy, for your tremendous help. And thank you,__debjunk__, for the great prompt. And thank you mods, for another wonderful exchange! This story is shamelessly AU. I've basically just taken whatever bits of canon are convenient and tossed out whatever bits aren't. :) Hope you enjoy it._

_Dejunk's prompt: Severus Snape's heart has been sealed against women ever since the fiasco with Lily. He finds himself paired with Hermione Granger in some sort of working atmosphere and is not pleased. Things warm up to amiable at some point and during a discussion Severus comments icily that women are heartless users and are not to be trusted. Our resident know-it-all sets out to prove him wrong, and eventually succeeds._

888

Hermione jolted awake, limbs tangled in sheets and body covered in a cold sweat. She had been chasing after her parents as they ran down a hillside. She screamed their names, but they didn't hear her, continuing to run until they met Voldemort, who waited at the bottom with his wand raised. A wash of green followed as her parents fell to the ground in the blinding light of the Killing Curse.

She realized she wasn't in her bed, and frantically, she groped in the dark for her wand, until a solid arm encircled her firmly and a low, sleep-slurred voice sounded from the ink black surroundings.

"Hermione. It was just a dream."

She whimpered, still struggling, the last vestiges of her nightmare causing her to reflexively fight.

"_Lumos._" Wandlight flashed. She felt herself hauled against the length of a warm body, enclosed in a tight embrace. "You're all right now," said the voice gently.

She squinted into the light and saw black hair, dark eyes, and the rugged outline of angular cheek bones. "Severus!" she half-sobbed in relief.

Lips traced a line from her ear down her neck, to her collar. "Shhhh..."

She fell still, her eyes closing, almost drugged into a stupor by the bliss of waking from a nightmare in someone's arms.

Severus put the wandlight back out, then rearranged himself more comfortably around her. He stroked her hair, wondering at the fierce sense of protectiveness that had taken hold of him. He shook his head, deciding not to dwell too much upon it.

"What was it?" he asked quietly.

She chewed her lip. "Parents," she finally answered. She felt calm now, safe.

There was silence for a long moment. Then he said, "It was not your fault."

She was too exhausted to work out the implications of his answer.

"Go to sleep," he said, hand resting possessively over her abdomen.

888

Severus folded his hands on his desk and considered the pale-faced, sullen student before him. Potter was also in the office, standing off to the side, by the bookshelves.

"Mr. Goyle. You are fortunate to have friends who cared enough about you to come to us."

"Don't see how that's true," the child muttered. "I told them not to tell anyone."

"You wished them to continue placing themselves into harm's way on your behalf?" Severus said levelly. He would have liked nothing more than to shake some sense into the boy, but he didn't want to risk further alienating him. "Not to mention, you yourself were in great danger, trusting potions made by Scorpius, who is barely tall enough to reach over the counters of Knockturn Alley, where he no doubt procured the ingredients."

Goyle did not respond to this, only slouching unhappily into his chair.

Severus used his wand to levitate a flask of grey-colored potion before them. "This is Wolfsbane, Mr. Goyle. Brewed personally by Professor Granger. She will continue to make it for you on a regular basis as long as you are a student here."

The boy finally stirred from his apathy. He reached for the potion, expression torn between relief and misery. "Thank you, sir."

Severus nodded and rubbed a hand tiredly across over his jaw, wishing for the thousandth time that Albus were here. The old headmaster was much more adept than he at handling adolescent angst.

"I am aware of the difficulties at home, Luke," he said softly. "I trust that you already understand how lycanthropy does not change the essence of who you are, and it is nothing to be ashamed of. Professor Granger would be more than happy to speak to you should you need it."

Goyle squirmed in the chair. "Okay, sir."

Severus took another breath. "There is also the matter of your health. Madam Russell, the school nurse, will be following up with you regularly to ensure you remain as well as you can through your transformations.

"Finally. I will speak to your father. However, Professor Potter here will be teaching you a few basic defensive spells. In case they are needed at home."

The boy's head lifted at this, his eyes widening in startlement. All his affected indifference fell away, leaving only painful gratitude.

"Is there anything else?" Severus finished, voice slightly subdued.

Shaking his head slowly, he whispered, "No. Thanks."

Severus waved his hand. "That will be all. Now do excuse us while I have a word with Professor Potter. He'll join you shortly."

"How is the youngest Mr. Potter, then?" inquired Severus after Goyle left.

Potter's countenance darkened. "In a hell of a lot of trouble. Although..." he sighed dramatically. "The irony is almost too good to be true. A son of mine in Slytherin decides to help a werewolf?"

"It seems that none of your line will ever stay out of trouble," said Severus, "which is why I wanted to keep you here for a moment. I do not need to impress upon you the importance of keeping that bloody cloak of yours locked away in a vault somewhere!"

Potter rolled his eyes. "Consider it done. Already got this lecture from Hermione." After a pause, he added, "Good move, by the way. Making her Head of Slytherin. Although if Ron were ever to find out, he'd go berserk."

"Well, isn't it fortunate for us that Mr. Weasley is not here?"

The boy was studying him with an overly interested air now. "You know, she's made you soft. Weird, but good, I think."

"I do not know what you are talking about," said Severus stonily.

"Oh, come off it. I see how the two of you look at each other over the dinner table. It would almost be too disturbing, if I didn't actually think you two were made for each other," Potter teased.

He scowled. "Nothing has changed."

"Right, and I'm not the Boy-Who-Lived. You're way more mellow than you were before. You're not tetchy all the time anymore. And the way you treated Goyle was almost... nice."

Severus crossed his arms. "I am not ever _tetchy._"

But he wondered, all the same, about how his life had become different in the last few weeks. He found repose in her company, he decided, and he enjoyed the time they spent together. His mind constantly strayed to thoughts of her during the day, and he looked forward to nights they would spend either in her office or his, drinking tea, marking student papers, or answering owls from parents. And... she bewitched him. There was a stormy passion between them that neither tried to deny. It was all a pattern he found acceptable, even comfortable, but he refused to infuse their association with any deeper meaning. That was a road, he knew, leading only to folly.

Potter's smirk drew him out of his thoughts. "Don't worry, the changes are only noticeable to people who actually know you. To everyone else, you're still the same old git."

Severus pointed to the pile of scrolls on his desk. "Performance reviews are approaching. I suggest you go do something useful with your time now."

888

The roar of the Floo in Hermione's chambers caused her to look up, startled, from her perusal of _Potions Monthly._ Severus stumbled out, grasping his arm, scattering a cloud of ash.

"Severus!" she gasped, bounding up and moving to steady him, guiding him to the couch. A scarlet stain was spreading beneath his fingers, where his hand pressed against an ugly gash. "_Accio_ Dittany!"

He grunted in pain as she settled him into the cushions. "Blasted pillock, Goyle."

"You went to see Goyle? What happened, for Merlin's sake? How did he manage to do this to you?" The Dittany flew into her hands and she twisted it open, beginning to apply it to his wounds.

"He didn't..." Severus began before jerking his arm away. "Let me!" he hissed, snatching the jar from her. "That vermin was always a talentless imbecile, couldn't defeat me in a true duel of wands so he set his bloody house-elf on me instead." He struggled now to peel away his blood-soaked robe.

"You _dueled_ him?"

Severus didn't answer; his hands shook as he applied the Dittany, and his jaw was rigid from effort.

"Severus, give me that and let me help you!" Hermione demanded, reaching again for the ointment.

"NO!" he roared, sitting up violently. A pile of books flew off the end table.

Hermione flinched, jumping backward.

Severus saw her stunned expression through a haze of pain. He brought a trembling hand to cover his face briefly, trying to calm himself, feeling edgy energy bleed out of him. "I'm sorry, Hermione," he breathed raggedly. "I cannot be touched after a meeting like this. I simply..." he shook his head, unable to finish.

Hermione's heart clenched. "I understand," she said soothingly. She summoned more potions. "Take something for the pain first, then."

Gratefully, he accepted the tonic and downed it, his agony gradually receding. He sat there in dazed relief, eyes closed, head thrown backward against the couch.

"Tell me what happened," she said softly, drawing him out.

Without opening his eyes, he began, "Well, I went to Gregory Goyle's, as promised. He was, shall we say, not pleased to see me."

"I can only imagine," said Hermione.

"Informed him of the news with Luke. Told him that I would be keeping a close eye on him just to ensure everyone was behaving civilly to each other."

Severus smiled coldly, and Hermione saw the Severus Snape of ten years ago, the hardened spy and soldier.

"He made known his opinions of me. I revealed that I also knew a few unflattering things about him."

"Such as?" she asked, hardly daring to wonder.

"Such as for all his posturing as a proper pure-blooded apologetic, he happens to be the bastard son of a Muggle father and witch mother, and that of course, he owes a Wizard's debt to Mr. Potter."

Hermione shook her head in wonder. "The things you do manage to find to hold at each other's necks!" she groused.

Severus' lips lifted in a slightly more relaxed smile. "Believe it or not, that is all it takes."

"And then?" she prompted.

"And then the coward pulled his wand. I dispatched him with a blasting curse, but not before I was devoured alive by the elf. I splinched during Apparition and was obliged to Floo the rest of the way."

He visibly deflated after he finished his tale, weighed down by his many burdens, and Hermione felt a flood of tender commiseration for a man who seemed to live only by fighting.

She sat down next to him, taking care not to disturb him.

He opened his eyes, which were dark and shadowed by pain.

Slowly, she reached for his arm, which was still oozing blood. "May I?" she asked.

He hesitated, then nodded, moving it closer to her.

The sting of the Dittany caused Severus' eyes to water. Being with Goyle had set into motion automatic defenses in him that were essential for remaining alive when he was serving the Dark Lord. As he subjected himself now to her ministrations, he gradually trusted her to see him in this state, in which his mind was not fully his and past collided with present.

"Severus?"

Like a man lost, he suddenly reached blindly for her, and found himself cradled in a soft embrace, the scent of rose water permeating through his nostrils.

"I—I almost could not do it anymore," he confessed. "It gets increasingly harder now. To find the energy to deal with people like Goyle."

"And yet, people expect you to?"

He marveled at her perceptiveness. "Yes. I don't know how Albus did it."

"I think you're doing a remarkable job, Severus. I'm very proud of you."

He sat back up and pulled her into the crook of his good arm, tucking her head beneath his chin. "When I came back just now, it felt like one of the old days. After a meeting with _him_. During which I would spend hours with my face pressed into the dirt or kissing his filthy robes. I couldn't bear the idea of you touching me like that, Hermione."

She murmured, signaling that she was listening.

"I... sometimes wonder if I can never be rid of it. Ten years, an Order of Merlin, and the complete adulation of the wizarding public, and I still feel like Voldemort's bloody servant."

"Severus," she said firmly. "You are not. You never _were_ truly, otherwise you could never have turned against him. And you must stop believing that you have to keep trying to atone for something. You have done far more than your share in this war that never ends."

He listened to her, holding her and feeling their heartbeats hammer together in unison. He was enveloped by a sense of peace and a knowledge that there was no place he'd rather be than here, with her, on a couch before a crackling fire. The frenzied thoughts of mundane existence were kept at bay, as long as he could be with her.

"And you," he whispered, fingers wandering up her neck to stroke the sensitive skin behind her ear. "have you not done much the same?"

She smiled faintly, understanding his unstated rebuke about her parents.

He squeezed her a bit tighter. "I... am pleased that I went to your door that day and forced you to take this job."

Her eyes drifted closed. "As am I."

She had just fallen in love with Severus Snape.

888

Hermione stared into her coffee cup. "Thanks for sitting down with me, Neville," she said to her companion.

Neville pulled off his work gloves and peeled away his outdoor gear. "'Course, Hermione! I'm always happy to catch up with you!"

They sat on a terrace outside the greenhouses, watching the last of the autumn leaves blow by. The temperature outside was crisp, bordering on cold, as winter approached.

"So... I actually have a purpose to this meeting other than just talking," she began.

Neville nodded. "Okay, go on."

"You know all about my... issues. The problems I've had with speaking in front of audiences."

Her friend smiled. "I think you've been spectacular at overcoming it, though. I know that you don't need your magical recordings anymore."

"No, I don't," she agreed. "I've been using Occlumency to get through my classes. I almost never have episodes anymore. But... I would like to stop having to resort to any more crutches, whether it's magical recordings or Occlumency. The real underlying problem that I've yet to work up the courage to face is... my parents."

"Oh..." Neville said, a knowing note in his voice.

"During our seventh year," she said, "I had to leave school with Harry and Ron to find Voldemort's remaining horcruxes."

"I remember."

"I was worried about what Voldemort might do to find Harry, like sending people to my house to question my parents. So I modified their memories. Well, sort of Obliviated them, more like it. And I sent them off to live in Australia, where they had no notion that I ever existed."

Neville nodded again.

"When the War was over, I, of course, went off to find them again. I tried to reverse the spell. But somehow, I mucked it up. I ended up making them senseless vegetables, instead," she said, determinedly keeping her voice steady. "They couldn't find a cure at St. Mungo's. So I had to send them off to live in a Muggle psychiatric institute in Warwickshire."

"Oh, Hermione, I'm so sorry," he said compassionately.

"So then, I was so... fed up with the whole experience that I just threw myself into university, then law school, then barrister training. I just didn't want to_think_ about anything, Neville! And just working until I dropped was a solution for a while. But then on my first day as a prosecutor before the Wizengamot, I totally froze. Freaked out. I suddenly saw this woman, who kind of looked like my mum. And I couldn't speak at all."

"Right..."

"And that's how I became an anti-social pariah for five years, until Severus came and hauled me here."

She took a breath. "So, I think it's time for me to visit my parents. I haven't, you know, ever since I put them in hospital ten years ago. And I was hoping... I..."

"That I'd help you with it, because I have parents in a similar situation?" said Neville gently.

"Yes," she said, flushing. "I'm sorry if I'm touching on a painful topic for you."

Neville shook his head. "It's not, really. Not anymore. See, all my life, I've never had parents, so it was a little bit different for me. I think for you, you need to first come to terms with the fact that it really wasn't your fault.

"But... as far as having parents like ours goes... I think you just have to accept them. Accept them as they are. I don't have any clue what my parents were like before they went to live at St. Mungo's. But I don't try to wish for them to be anything other than how they're like now."

Hermione stirred her coffee thoughtfully. "Yes, I suppose that would be a big challenge for me. Because I do have all these memories of how they used to be. And part of the reason I get so terrified whenever I think about them is because I keep saying to myself, they'll never be that way again."

"Exactly. You should go see them, Hermione. Half the battle is making the decision to go. Your fear of the unknown is just as strong as your fear of the thing itself. If you want, I could go with you."

Hermione smiled. "Thanks, you've been so helpful already. But I think someone else has already volunteered for that job..."

888

_Reviews are much appreciated!_


	10. Chapter Nine

_**Wars of our Fathers**_

_A fan fiction by labrt2004_

_Chapter Nine_

_Written for debjunk in the Autumn 2011 SS/HG Exchange_

**Disclaimer:** None of it is mine.

_**Author's Notes: **__Thank you to my betas, la_syren and snarkyroxy, for your tremendous help. And thank you,__debjunk__, for the great prompt. And thank you mods, for another wonderful exchange! This story is shamelessly AU. I've basically just taken whatever bits of canon are convenient and tossed out whatever bits aren't. :) Hope you enjoy it._

_Dejunk's prompt: Severus Snape's heart has been sealed against women ever since the fiasco with Lily. He finds himself paired with Hermione Granger in some sort of working atmosphere and is not pleased. Things warm up to amiable at some point and during a discussion Severus comments icily that women are heartless users and are not to be trusted. Our resident know-it-all sets out to prove him wrong, and eventually succeeds._

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Hermione and Severus walked up the stairs to his office after lunch. In his study, he turned to her and dropped a kiss atop her head. "Wait here a moment. I'll go to my bedroom to get a warmer cloak, and then we can depart for your parents'."

She felt a hint of apprehension, but it was only a faint echo of the suffocating fear that was wont to grip her before she came to Hogwarts. Spying their trunks, which the house-elves had stacked neatly beside the door, she was suffused with comfort. The journey to Warwickshire was long overdue, she thought, gazing out the window. With Severus at her side, she had no doubt about facing whatever that awaited.

Severus was at the foot of the staircase leading to his chambers when a jovial voice sounded from above. "Miss Granger! What a pleasure it is to see you here with Severus," Albus said exuberantly. "I hope you are getting on well?"

Hermione smiled, feeling unaccountably shy. "I'm good," she said truthfully to the portrait.

"You must be out of practice with your omniscience, Albus," said Severus dryly. "Hermione has been here for months."

The infernal twinkle, the old headmaster's trademark, was evident even behind the painted spectacles. "Ah, Severus, one day when you are old and dead like me, you will understand. We tend to pay slightly less heed to what is happening around us. I myself, for example, have just spent the most engaging holiday in a frame on the third floor corridor."

"That is simply wonderful to hear," Severus said, rolling his eyes. "Now, if you'd be so kind, Albus, I have business to attend to."

Albus waved a purple-robed arm cheerfully. "Of course, of course, dear boy. I won't keep you any longer, other than to give you and Miss Granger my best wishes."

Severus' back stiffened, his hand frozen on the banister. "Your best wishes for _what_, exactly?"

Hermione looked questioningly at Professor Dumbledore, wondering the same thing.

"A long, happy life together. You are no doubt aware of the Fealty Spell."

He walked back down the stairs and went to stand fully before the portrait, eyes gleaming dangerously. "Yes. All Hogwarts employees undergo it. Your point?"

Albus smiled serenely. "Did you not observe the rather interesting results after you and Miss Granger completed it?"

Hermione listened, heart pounding in her chest, a premonition forming in her mind. "Oh..." she murmured, furrowing her brow.

Dumbledore looked at her kindly. "I see you have figured it out, my dear."

Severus remembered all too well the experience—the burst of magic that had exploded between them. Suspicion of what might have occurred dawned on him, making the blood in his veins turn to ice. "What did you _do_, Albus?" he snarled.

"I? I am an old man in a painted portrait. I did nothing. Fealty is old magic, Severus. It usually forms a bonding of wills between two people entering a contractual relationship. But it forms a bonding of hearts between two people who are soul mates."

"_Soul mates?_" he spluttered. Severus' grip on his studied calm slipped as panic set in like a storm blowing in from the sea.

"I see what you are thinking in your eyes. This is not Dark Magic, my boy. Rather, it is the purest form of Light Magic. It does not affect your ability to choose, it only reinforces any connection that already exists," Albus said softly.

Albus' words did not reassure Severus. On the contrary, they filled him with more fury. "You mean, _love?_" he spat mockingly.

"Quite so," said Albus. "But—"

With a curse, Severus whipped out his wand and flung a velvet curtain onto the portrait with such force that the other frames rattled against the wall.

Love. Pain sliced through him at the thought of the vile word. It had no place in his life. He had been young and untried enough twenty years ago to put faith in something that ended only in humiliation, subjecting him to nothing but years of bitter heartache.

Hermione watched as he stood unmoving before Dumbledore's covered portrait, shoulders heaving with repressed emotion. It seemed that he no longer even remembered her presence. She was glad for the moment of relative privacy for her to gather her shaken thoughts.

"Severus," she called gently after a few minutes rolled by. She placed a hand on his shoulder.

He shook it off with a vehemence that made Hermione's heart sink.

Shiftless anger churned in him as he turned to her, looking at the gleaming hair and expressive eyes that had entranced him with their spell for the last three months. The mere sight of her elicited a stirring of passion, which only deepened his rage. He'd already grown so attached to her, he thought with a flare of terror in his gut. He felt the fool all over again. "Do not. Expect anything to come of this silly revelation," he ground out.

She crossed her arms and looked at him with a challenging expression. "I don't. I'm judging only by what I've witnessed for myself."

He growled, then looked away.

She stepped up to him and met his gaze defiantly, even though his eyes were chilly and devoid of warmth. "Don't you dare ignore me. I—I love you, Severus."

He laughed mirthlessly. Hurt disappointment flashed across her face, and Severus felt a twinge of guilt, but he firmly suppressed it."Do not insult my intelligence. _You_ love _me_? "

"Astoundingly, I do," she insisted. "Is that so very difficult to believe?"

Her calm persistence pushed him over the edge. "Don't presume to _love_me," he sneered. "I know all about you and your kind. You occupy yourself with whatever man is closest and most convenient, before growing bored and moving on to the next." The words tumbled out of him before he could stop himself, a garbled, incoherent accusation that had festered in him for two decades.

"My kind? You mean Mudbloods?" she asked icily. Her features had arranged themselves into a deadly stillness.

"Women," he hissed.

There was a long silence. The word hung between them, foul and repugnant.

Severus blinked, his anger spent.

Suddenly, she squared her shoulders, drawing herself to her full height. "Severus Snape!" she shrieked, eyes ablaze. "You loathsome coward! How long are you determined to be unhappy?"

Her eyes burned, and her heart ached as if it were beating within a cage of sharded glass, but she stubbornly continued her tirade. "Have it your way then. Keep wallowing in your own past, if that's what pleases you."

She walked to the door with regal dignity, and with a flick of her wand, sent her trunks hovering. "I will return after the holidays. After I see my parents." She stood stiffly, back turned to him. "The Severus _I_ know gave me the courage to do this," she said bleakly to the empty air. And with that, she was gone.

888

_Reviews are much appreciated!_


	11. Chapter Ten

_**Wars of our Fathers**_

_A fan fiction by labrt2004_

_Chapter Ten_

_Written for debjunk in the Autumn 2011 SS/HG Exchange_

**Disclaimer:** None of it is mine.

_**Author's Notes: **__Thank you to my betas, la_syren and snarkyroxy, for your tremendous help. And thank you,__debjunk__, for the great prompt. And thank you mods, for another wonderful exchange! This story is shamelessly AU. I've basically just taken whatever bits of canon are convenient and tossed out whatever bits aren't. :) Hope you enjoy it._

_Dejunk's prompt: Severus Snape's heart has been sealed against women ever since the fiasco with Lily. He finds himself paired with Hermione Granger in some sort of working atmosphere and is not pleased. Things warm up to amiable at some point and during a discussion Severus comments icily that women are heartless users and are not to be trusted. Our resident know-it-all sets out to prove him wrong, and eventually succeeds._

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Hermione stormed across the castle grounds to the Apparition border. His cutting words played through her mind again as she trod across the crunchy, frost-packed grass. She was almost breathless from pain. He had known how to hurt her in ways that no one else could. It had always been too much to expect him to be healed of wounds which ran too deep for healing, she thought, scrubbing a hand across her wet cheeks.

She still loved him, she thought miserably. She loved heartless, aloof Severus Snape. He had thrown her love in her face, yet he'd been the one who appeared on her doorstep all those months ago to pluck her out of her pathetic half existence, he'd been the one who pushed her to confront her fears, and at night, he been the one who soothed her through her nightmares.

Reaching the castle boundary, she stopped and took a breath. She didn't have time to think about how he could possibly have done all those things without loving her. There was still something important she had to do, and she was determined to do it, even if Severus was no longer there to infuse her with his strength. Squeezing her eyes shut, she dredged up a memory of ivy-covered gates and waxed linoleum floors. St. Michael's Psychiatric Hospital. As the collapsing forces of Apparition gathered around her, she steeled herself, battling her way through her heartache.

This wasn't his fight, it was hers.

When she flickered into being at her destination, she rolled her shoulders and shook out her limbs, wincing from the soreness of long distance Apparition. She looked about blearily, her eyes eventually focusing on the wrought-iron gates and the low-rise brick building beyond them. There were people sitting on benches by the massive lawn in spite of the cold, overcast day. A man threw a Frisbee to a dog. Two doctors in white coats stood at the building entrance, immersed in discussion. It was quiet, but not as austere and depressing as she remembered from the one previous time she'd been here. Then again, her recollections were not that clear. It had been a horrible day when she came here to commit her parents ten years ago.

She walked up the path and entered the hospital. The atrium was generally pleasant, if artificially so. Landscapes hung on the walls, and windows overlooking the lawn let in the anemic winter sunlight. She passed the waiting room, with its magazine racks and worn, slightly dated furniture, and proceeded to the information desk. The woman behind it looked up at her when she approached.

"I'm Hermione Granger," she said uncertainly.

The woman smiled encouragingly. "Hello, Hermione Granger."

"My parents are here."

"Ah, do you know their rooms?"

"No," she admitted uncomfortably. "It's been, um... awhile." So far, she'd been feeling mostly collected, but now she felt her hold over herself slip a bit.

The woman gave her an odd look. "Granger, you said?"

Hermione nodded.

"Your parents are Ian and Lisa, then?"

"Yes, they would be the ones," she said impatiently.

The woman was wearing an expression of undisguised shock. "Are you sure?" she asked absurdly. "They've been living here for years, and no one's ever mentioned a daughter, except to say that you were dead."

"Not quite dead," she said dismissively. "It's... complicated."

The woman nodded, then turned to her computer screen, looked up her parents' names, and wrote their room number on a slip of paper. "Actually, we get a lot of that around here. Committing a family member is very distressing business. Some people just can't handle it." She patted Hermione's hand sympathetically. "But better late than never, dear. I'll need identification."

Hermione's mouth had gone dry. "Right." She fished out her Muggle driver's license. "Thanks," she muttered after the woman scanned the license and waved her through to a set of double doors.

She first walked by a large window, through which she could see many tables and chairs. Residents were interspersed throughout the room, some simply staring into vacant space, while others were busy with drawing, knitting, or staring at the televisions. A few visitors were also present, including a bereaved-looking man holding a woman's wasted hand. Her pulse throbbing painfully in her temples, Hermione moved on and stepped into the lift.

When the lift opened, she emerged onto a quiet corridor lined with many doors. Room 358, the paper read. She studied a sign with directions, then turned left. Her parents were housed together. She had at least seen to that.

She stopped in front of 358, staring at the placards bearing the names of her parents. There wasn't really a point to knocking, so with her heart in her throat, she pushed open the door. Nothing about the room struck her as familiar. As if walking through a dream, she crept to the foot of one of the beds. Her mother lay beneath the sheets, still as a statue. Her face had grown thinner, and her hair was straggly, but for the most part, she was unchanged. In the cruelest of ironies, time had been kind to her mother's empty body.

Turning, she walked to the other side of the room, to her father. The sound of her own footsteps was deafening in the surreal silence of the room. Unlike her mother, her father bore visible signs of his age. Ridges and folds were evident in his face, and there was a prominent bald spot atop his head.

She wandered to the middle of the room now and stood between her parents' beds. "Hi Mum and Dad," she whispered. "I'm sorry I've been away for so long," she said, a little bit more loudly. She glanced from one parent to the other, searching for some indication that they might have heard her. When she saw that both remained senseless, she sighed, feeling foolish.

She straightened her father's covers and organized the medication bottles on her mother's nightstand. What was she supposed to do now? She stared at a spot on the wall.

"Not much has happened to me," she babbled, mostly just to say something. "I married Ron... and then I divorced him. We didn't suit... Oh, and I finished law school. But I was useless as a barrister."

She paused and glanced around, intending to stop. Then unexpectedly, more words came.

"I went to work for the Ministry... you would have hated that, Dad. The job was horribly tedious. Then Severus—Professor Snape—came and offered me a job at Hogwarts, teaching Potions. I like it much better than the Ministry... It's great to do something that has an impact. The children are mostly manageable, and I do enjoy working with Harry and Neville.

"And Severus..." She hesitated. The pain of their parting was still only a few hours old and a private burden. Hermione suddenly had the bizarre need to talk about it with her mother.

"Severus has been my strength," she confided. "He's a man of principle. Everyone respects him for how well he's risen from a dark past. He can be rather... unreasonable, as he'd rather be miserable than accept the love of people around him. But I—I love him." Hermione's voice cracked at the end.

Something inside her shifted. She braced herself against a wall. "Oh God," she choked, emotions finally descending upon her. Collapsing into a chair, she buried her face in her hands, wracked by violent, heaving sobs that were ripped straight out of her chest. A decade's worth of grief had chosen that moment to burst forth. She didn't know how long she sat like that, rocking to and fro, tears soaking her clothing.

When the episode finally passed, she rasped, vision still blurry,"I'm so sorry, Mum and Dad, for doing this to you. For everything."

It took a few seconds for her to recognize what she had just said. She _was _sorry, she realized with sudden clarity, but not in the blind, anguished way she had always been. She was sorry for a war that had visited suffering upon her family and had torn her childhood apart. She was sorry that her desperate bid to protect her parents had backfired. Sorry that they were no longer the vibrant people they'd once been.

"Sorry," she said clearly this time, as if she were uttering a benediction. There seemed to be more light in the room now as she slowly unfurled herself from her chair, letting go. Feeling the guilt lift away from her, scattering like a handful of sand tossed into the wind.

She closed her eyes, awash with memories. Running into her father's arms after her performance in the school play. Peeling peas with her mother in the kitchen on a warm summer night. The three of them crowding around the dinner table as she opened her Hogwarts letter.

With wonder, she discovered that she felt whole again. A piece of her soul that had been lost had returned to its rightful place.

Scooting the chair up to her mother's bed, she reached across the railing to take hold of her hand. A new sense of acceptance settled over her. "I think I'll be all right now, Mum," she said.

To her surprise, her mother stirred and turned her face toward her touch. She didn't open her eyes, but the faintest trace of a smile appeared.

Hermione gasped, smiling broadly in return.

She was free.

888

_Reviews are much appreciated!_


	12. Chapter Eleven

_**Wars of our Fathers**_

_A fan fiction by labrt2004_

_Chapter Eleven_

_Written for debjunk in the Autumn 2011 SS/HG Exchange_

**Disclaimer:** None of it is mine.

_**Author's Notes: **__Thank you to my betas, la_syren and snarkyroxy, for your tremendous help. And thank you,__debjunk__, for the great prompt. And thank you mods, for another wonderful exchange! This story is shamelessly AU. I've basically just taken whatever bits of canon are convenient and tossed out whatever bits aren't. :) Hope you enjoy it._

_Dejunk's prompt: Severus Snape's heart has been sealed against women ever since the fiasco with Lily. He finds himself paired with Hermione Granger in some sort of working atmosphere and is not pleased. Things warm up to amiable at some point and during a discussion Severus comments icily that women are heartless users and are not to be trusted. Our resident know-it-all sets out to prove him wrong, and eventually succeeds._

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Severus paced in his office, bleary-eyed and exhausted, his hair standing up in odd directions from repeated pulling. He had never felt so pathetically wretched. He had known, from the moment Hermione had disappeared behind the door in a swirl of robes, that he had made a mistake of monumental proportions. For the past two days, he was acutely aware of her absence from his life. His sitting room felt empty, his office, cold. His meals were taken away uneaten, and owl post piled up on his desk.

"Severus," said a chiding voice from the wall.

He glared at Albus' portrait. "Just because I took down that bloody curtain does not mean I am soliciting your company," he growled.

"You are going to make yourself ill," the old man said pleasantly.

Severus swung his arm, sweeping his books to the floor. Laying his palms down on his desk, he stood in a hunched posture and whispered, voice tinged with despair, "I hurt her."

"Ah, have you discovered that you do love Miss Granger, then?" Albus said in matter-of-fact tones, as if it were quite normal for a portrait to be dispensing relationship advice.

"I _can't _love her," said Severus viciously. He swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing from the effort. "But I—" he struggled to put to words the lost, hollow sensation that losing her had wrought in him. To describe how he missed her laughter, her conversation, her very essence.

"It seems obvious to me that you _can _love, my boy."

"Albus..." he said warningly. He was in no mood for one of the headmaster's maudlin lectures.

"I have known you for a long, long time. And I've watched you these last few years, especially. It would be remiss of me to claim that I never worried about you, especially right after you took over this office. But you have risen admirably, Severus, blossomed beyond even my wildest dreams."

Severus scowled, but found himself listening, in spite of himself.

"What I have seen is you befriending your enemy's son. You expending inordinate amounts of time and energy rebuilding the school. You watching protectively over the students. And most importantly, you recognizing the pain of another and reaching out to her, pulling her to safety. All while steadfastly refusing the recognition due to you at every turn. Are those the actions of a man incapable of love?"

"You know perfectly well that common decency does not amount to the same thing as... this bonding of hearts that you speak of!" said Severus, annoyed.

Albus leaned his forehead into his hand. "Severus, Severus," he said affectionately. "Look at you. Unkempt, sleepless, chased by your own inner demons. Even as you sit here declaring that you aren't capable of loving Miss Granger, you are the very semblance of yourself on that frantic Halloween night when you came to me twenty years ago. Only one kind of emotion inspires this kind of behavior, my dear boy."

"Do _not _bring that up!" Severus roared.

Albus sat up straighter. "Bring what up? Lily?" he said, as if they'd finally gotten to the most interesting part of the discussion.

"She is the reason that I cannot lay down my heart to be tread upon again," said Severus savagely.

A sad smile appeared on Albus' face. "Yes, those cuts always run deepest, don't they? But will you let fear of a pain inflicted upon you two decades ago prevent you from grasping at a chance at happiness now? You have always been so fearless..."

"What if Hermione..." Severus trailed off, seeing that questioning Hermione's commitment to him was ludicrous beyond measure.

"I quite agree," Albus said, looking infuriatingly pleased.

Severus couldn't work up the will to glare. He merely resumed his pacing, more confounded than before. None of his thoughts made sense. He simply knew that absent Hermione, his world was incomplete.

Albus' eyes followed him as he traced circles around the room. "Severus," he said quietly. "You deserve to be happy."

At the mention of his own happiness, new despair welled up in him. The magnitude of his error seemed insurmountable. "I drove her away," he admitted to Albus. "Or rather, she cast me away in the end," he added, recalling with self-disgust her scornful parting words.

"Ah, but I believe it was for the best that she completed this portion of her journey alone."

"I've been a fool," Severus muttered.

"We who love always are," Albus called after him as he suddenly charged out of his office.

When he reached the door of the Defense office, he rapped on it impatiently. After a few moments, he waved his wand, easily gaining entrance through wards that could not be keyed against the headmaster.

"Potter," he sniped, as Harry emerged from his bedroom, rubbing his eyes sleepily.

"_What? _Merlin's balls, Snape, it's eight o'clock in the morning during Christmas holidays." Potter blinked at him. "And you look like hell."

"Have you heard from her?" Severus bit out.

"Heard from..." Potter frowned. "Hermione? Yeah, I have? Owl just delivered something this morning, I think."

"Well?" said Severus imperiously. "How is she?"

"You know, you're not exactly getting on my good side, here, Severus," Potter grumbled.

When Severus only glowered at him, too agitated for words, Potter gave him a strange look, then shook his head. "_Accio _letter!"

Severus reached out to take the letter after Potter had summoned it, but the boy withheld it. "Does private correspondence mean anything to you?"

He closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Apologies. Go on."

Potter scanned the missive. "She's good. Went to see her parents. About time she did that.."

Severus felt a stab of remorse laced with pride. Brave Hermione. She'd gone and done it on her own.

Potter put down the letter and evaluated Severus with a critical eye. "I see why you're here," he said.

At Severus' questioning gesture toward the letter, Potter nodded. "Er... is it safe to say you've changed your mind?" the boy asked, a note of teasing in his voice.

"Don't play your coy little games with me, Potter," he thundered.

"Wow," Potter breathed, taking a half step backward. "This is serious."

The younger wizard pulled out a chair at his dining table, gesturing for Severus to sit. He did so, suddenly feeling completely drained. He put his elbows on the table and buried his head in his fingers. "I love her," he confessed, as if it were a crime.

Harry hid a smile. "Obviously."

"I believe she hates me now. I certainly tried my best to arrange for it."

Harry glanced meaningfully at the letter. "You might have a shot," he said lightly, "if you grovel."

Severus groaned.

"Severus," Harry said after a pause. "She'll be back after the holidays are over. She's loyal, steadfast, and kind. You'll be fine."

A glass was placed at Severus' elbow. "Have some firewhisky."

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Hermione pulled her traveling cloak tighter about her, lifting the hood up in an attempt to ward off the sting of swirling snow. She struggled up the foot path leading to the castle, slipping and sliding across the frozen ground.

"Merlin, it's cold," she muttered. With one final grunt, she scaled the top step and stomped her feet at the castle entrance. She brushed the snow off from the hem of her cloak, took a deep breath, and walked briskly across the courtyard.

She stopped suddenly in her tracks and threw her head back to look at the sky, at the kaleidoscope of shimmering grey and white. Snowflakes clung to her eyelashes and melted on her skin. The sun, concealed behind many layers of blizzard-laden clouds, still managed to shine faintly through.

Her mother's smile flashed across her mind, even as the storm intensified around her, pelting ice cold grit against her cheeks.

The wildly shifting wind, the silent stillness of the winter landscape, and the shimmering lights of the castle beyond... it all felt right and good. Hermione sighed, throwing her arms out, turning around in circles. Borne away by an inexplicable euphoria, she laughed, a deep, joyful laugh full of release.

When she finally quieted, she noticed with surprise that she wasn't alone. The tall, black form of Severus stood in the yawning archway of the front gates, silhouetted by the flickering torches on the walls behind him. Unable to see his shadowed face, she stayed rooted in the rapidly accumulating snow and simply watched him. She had purposefully not given Severus much thought on the journey back. The sheer relief she had experienced at St. Michael's had crowded out any predisposition toward gloom. As he continued standing beneath the arch, she could sense a change in him. Hope ignited in her, causing her to hold her breath.

Severus had never seen a sight more beautiful than Hermione spinning in the midst of a gusty Highland snowstorm. His heart filled at once to the brink, overflowing with a tenderness he'd believed himself incapable of and a love he had thought impossible. Recalling his own foolish words, he hoped with a slight trembling in his soul that she could forgive him.

He quickly flew down the steps toward her, robes billowing behind him.

"Hermione," he breathed when he reached her in the middle of the courtyard. "My love." He took her mittened hand in his bare one, paying no heed to the numbing cold. He pressed his lips against her fingers, wordlessly communicating his regret. "I—I am a hard man to love. Forgive me," he said, voice rough. He brought her hand against his own cheek, needing to feel her solidity against himself.

The moment she saw him come to her, she knew that she... _they _had won. She took his face between her hands, drinking in the piercing dark eyes, the aquiline nose, and the windswept black hair. "There is no one else I'd rather love," she whispered.

He wrapped his own cloak around the both of them, drawing her into the warmth of his embrace. Their breaths misting in the winter air, he gently kissed her. "Nor I. I am glad you are back."

-Fin-

888

_Reviews are much appreciated!_


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